UC Commission on the Future

UC Commission on the Future

Working Group First Round Recommendations

Commission on the Future

•How can the University of California best serve the state in the years ahead and maintain access, quality and affordability in a time of diminishing resources?

•The UC COTF recognizes that limited state funding will require creativity and new strategies to meet their mission.

Five Working Groups

1. Size and Shape of the UC

2. Education and curriculum

3. Access and affordability

4. Funding

5. Research strategies

•COTF uses and manipulates these five groups in order to help the UC system maintain access, quality, and affordability.

• Recommendation 1: Increase the number of non-resident undergraduates.

• Should not displace funded resident students.

• Each 10-percent increase in NR students would generate $9.8 million

• Recommendation 2: Lower-Division Major Requirements

• Streamlined transfer has the potential to improve time to degree, thereby freeing up more spaces for additional students.

Size and Shape

• Recommendation 3: To improve the student transfer function, enhance the ASSIST website and provide information on what courses the student must take to be prepared for a major on any campus.

• ASSIST: May require $2-3 million over the next few years

• ASSIST avoids the costs of students taking non-transferrable courses/ Increases time to degree

• Recommendation 4: Examine the utility of practice doctorates for allied health professions.

• Imposes greater expense and time commitment on students

• Recommendation 5: Eliminate administrative redundancies and promote efficiencies where possible.

• Savings from administrative efficiencies may improve access to a UC education, e.g., a common student information system can provide less costly mechanisms for access opportunities.

• Administrative efficiencies for long-term savings often entail significant up-front costs but have the potential to create significant long-term savings.

Education and Curriculum

• Recommendation 1: Manage educational resources more effectively to increase number of undergrads graduating in four years or completing degrees in three years.

• Able to accommodate more students

• If student graduates one quarter/semester earlier: ~ $8,895 savings for one quarter and $13,342 for one semester

• Recommendation 2: Continue timely exploration of online instruction in the curriculum

• Greater access to classes for undergrads and transferring students

• More cost efficient than on-ground classes

• Recommendation 3: Expand use of self-supporting and part-time programs to expand opportunities for a UC education to existing and potential students, working professionals, and underserved communities.

• New revenue from new self-supporting programs and by offering UC courses to non-UC students.

• Improves access for students in the regular programs.

• Recommendation 4: Develop a system wide academic planning framework that incorporates campus goals within the context of priorities identified for the University as a whole.

• Supports efficient allocation of resources towards identified campus and system academic priorities.

• Preliminary Recommendation: The working group seeks UC input on its forthcoming recommendation on quality.

• Maintaining top quality faculty and educational programs will ensure that the most qualified and capable students will continue to enroll at UC.

Access and Affordability

• Recommendation 1: Reaffirm UC’s commitment to access for California students.

• Continue to guarantee admission to the “top one-eighth” of CA public high school graduates, and prioritize access for transfer students

• Enroll a diverse student body.

• Ensures that the admission of nonresident undergraduates will not disadvantage California applicants

• Recommendation 2: Reaffirm commitment to be financially accessible for all admitted undergrads.

• Financial aid would remain a top budgetary priority for the University

• Recommendation 3: Reaffirm University’s commitment to fulfilling graduate education’s role in serving UC’s research enterprise, UC’s teaching mission, and the diverse knowledge and workforce demands of the State and beyond.

• Attract students with top academic qualifications and diversity of perspective.

• Meeting the University’s goals for enrollment and competitiveness will be costly.

• Recommendation 4: Re-establish UC financial aid eligibility for undocumented California high school graduates

• Would extend institutional financial aid eligibility to ~three- quarters of the undocumented students at UC

• Recommendation 5: Adopt a multi-year fee schedule for new undergraduate students.

• Since continuing students would be assured a fixed fee increase rate, any revenue required would have to be generated by the 30% of students who are subject to the “new” student rate.

• Recommendation 6: Rename the Education Fee and the Professional Degree Fees (but not the Registration Fee) as “tuition.”

• Greater clarity about UC’s pricing structure.

• Administrative processes and systems would need to adapt to the new terminology.

Funding Strategies• Recommendation 1: Develop a multiyear

advocacy campaign aimed at grass roots opinion leaders throughout California to foster support for the University as a priority for state funding.

• State funds help maintain affordability at UC

• An advocacy campaign could be costly

• Recommendation 2: Design and implement a system to identify, promote, and adopt the best administrative practices within the UC system.

• It’s working for UC Berkeley – Can work for UC

• Recommendation 3: Revise practice and policy on charging indirect cost recovery for non-federally funded research.

• Establish consistent policy and practice throughout UC to recover the share of indirect costs associated with non-federally funded research.

• Shifts burden away from student fees

• Recommendation 4: Improve indirect cost recovery rates with federal agencies.

• Recommendation 5: Adopt a multiyear strategy to replace student fees with tuition, generate new revenue, and strengthen planning.

• Middle class students and families would likely bear increased costs.

• Recommendation 6: Increase enrollment of nonresident undergraduates.

• Enhance geographic diversity

• Recommendation 7: Advocate for a Pell Augmentation Grant to Institutions (“Pell PLUS”)

• Would compromise diversity and access.

• Recommendation 8: Examine alternate faculty compensation plans.

• Shift burden away from student fees

• Recommendation 9: Charging differential tuition by campus.

• Increases could have negative effects on quality of the enrolled students and diversity

Research Strategies

• Recommendation 1: UC must recover a greater share of the costs of research sponsored by outside agencies and make its management of those funds more transparent to ensure accountability to its sponsors and its researchers.

• By increasing our recovery of the costs of doing research, some University funds could be redeployed more broadly to support broadened access to educational and research opportunities.

• Increase transparency in the management of recovered funds

Research Strategies

•Recommendation 2: UC must ensure continued excellence across a broad spectrum of cutting-edge research. To aid in this effort, the University should • (1) prioritize internal funds to support world-class research

in disciplines where extramural funding options are limited;

• (2) motivate the development of large-scale, interdisciplinary, collaborative research projects to capture new funding streams; and

• (3) augment and enhance opportunities for graduate student research and support wherever possible.

• Recommendation 3: Create multi-campus, interdisciplinary “UC Grand Challenge Research Initiatives” to realize the enormous potential of UC’s ten campuses and three national laboratories.

• Benefits: New Funding Streams, Meeting California’s needs, New Research Paradigms, Supporting Basic Research and Public Engagement and Advocacy

• Recommendation 4: Streamline risk management practices to increase the efficiency of the research enterprise.

• Ensure a better use of the research dollars provided by the State.

• Decreased administrative burdens on faculty will increase interaction between faculty and students.

•Recommendation 5: Demonstrate the benefits that UC research provides to California and the nation. In addition, UC should speak in advocating at the national level for increased and sustained investment in research and knowledge development.

• Impact on Access: With increased research funding and a healthy economy, more funds will be available to ensure broad access to education at the University of California.

• Fiscal Implications: Sustained Federal investments in basic research are essential for the financial stability of the University. They will ensure that the research enterprise at UC remains properly funded.