Governor Schwarzenegger proposed an amendment to fund the UC and CSU system by at least 10% of the budget.
This amendment carries several opportunities and several drawbacks and somehow I’m a little skeptical of the amendment of several reasons.
First of all these 10% percent could be the standard funding of the systems and even as it says at least 10% this could lead to that the assembly in theory could pass a budget with higher funding for the UC and CSU system it could be an excuse to always fund the systems with 10% flat. On the flip side of it would be an improvement of the current situation where the systems are funded well fewer than 10% of the state budget.
Secondly it doesn’t address the fundamental fact that the California’s economy is highly unstable due to prop 13 and that the state must pass a balanced budget. The universities still have to get external funding to be prepared in case of a bad year in the Californian economy. By binding the budget to 10% it might ironically work against its purpose of making the system more stable because it would be more tied to the Californian economy and when the economy goes down the funding of the University goes down with it. And what is even worse is that the systems could be funded well, maybe put to 15 percent in good times, but be cut down to 10% of a worse budget in bad times and thus make it even more tied to the economy of the state. To counter this we must address the deeper problem of the California system and make the economy more stable.
Thirdly you bind up the budget, and make the state less flexible. Yes on the one hand a bad economy could not be an excuse to cut the system more than necessary, but it might be that this flexibility might be needed in bad times whether you like it or not. By passing an amendment that ties one tenth of the economy then could be a bad idea.
Personally I think what needs to be done is to give the universities the possibility of long term planning by giving them a more flat amount of money that might go up a little each year, but roughly stays the same both in bad times and good times and not bind it to a percentage of the state economy.
About the part of a constitutional amendment I not sure, on the one hand such an amendment could do that the universities are not cut too much in bad times, but in really bad times it might work against its purpose by binding such an amount to the universities.
At the other side 10 percent of the budget is way more that the system gets now, so even though I don’t think this is the best amendment that have been propsed and that there are other options, if it should pass it would be an improvement of the current fiscal situation.
However Mark Yudof should stop licking the govenors ass and do some critical thinking because even if it would help the system it would not bring that much more stability and there are better alternatives. Even me as an random undergraduate student that isn’t even enrolled at the UC but exchanging have done more critical thinking than him.