Amid growing fears that their institutions may be vulnerable to major cutbacks under the new Schwarzenegger administration, the governing boards of the state's two public university systems signaled Wednesday that they were beginning to prepare for painful reductions in the coming year.
With other areas of the state budget enjoying constitutional or statutory protection from significant cuts, "we feel especially vulnerable," said Larry Hershman, the University of California's vice president for budget.
Hershman spoke after briefing UC's Board of Regents, who met at UCLA, on the uncertainty facing the university as the administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger begins to grapple with the state's fiscal crisis.
"People in Sacramento don't want to cut K-12 [education], or local government or health and social services," Hershman said. "But if you keep taking everything off the table, what you have left" are the University of California and the California State University, among very few remaining choices.
The two systems, Hershman said, "are in the vulnerable part of the budget."
California State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed agreed. "The whole [Cal State] system is just sitting out there, anxiously awaiting, 'How is California going to deal with this catastrophic budget problem?' " he said.
Anxiety over the grim likelihood of budget cuts, enrollment caps and further fee increases -- after 40% boosts for both systems last year -- was uppermost as the governing boards of both systems met separately in Southern California on Wednesday.
At the UC regents meeting in Westwood, fears about the effects of the budget crisis on the university erupted in a noisy protest against further cuts and fee increases by several hundred students outside the meeting room.
UC President Robert C. Dynes, presiding over his first regents meeting, went out at one point to speak to the crowd, gathered inside a rotunda at UCLA's Covell Commons. "You are a powerful and noisy group of people," Dynes told the students. He later assured them, "We're on the same team."
In a meeting of the Cal State Board of Trustees in Long Beach, meanwhile, Reed warned that his 23-campus system will turn away 15,000 academically qualified applicants next school year if the Legislature sticks with its plan to freeze funding for student enrollment at current levels.
