Facing yet another year of multimillion-dollar budget cuts, California's public colleges and universities, long renowned for their excellence and affordability, may be poised to follow the state's once-smooth highways into decline.
The severe funding reductions likely to be imposed on the campuses this summer come on top of three years of cuts that have eroded the quantity and quality of offerings, in ways large and small.
At East Los Angeles College, for example, students now find the doors to the campus library closed on Saturdays. At Cal State Fresno, class sizes are climbing and more than 1,500 students who meet admission requirements are turned away.
And at a prestigious UC San Diego oceanography institute, administrators agonize over whether to renege on the funding for a 53-year-old survey of California fisheries or stop maintaining historic collections of fish and shellfish. Or both.
"California has had the very best in public higher education," said David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, an umbrella group for the nation's major universities. "The question now is whether it wants to settle for the middle of the pack."
Across the nation, public colleges and universities have struggled to make do with diminishing shares of state budgets. Many, as in California, have cut programs and raised tuition.
But such changes, Ward noted, may be disproportionately painful when they affect the pillars of a higher education system both historically well-funded and admired nationwide.
At the University of California and California State University systems, the state's 3-year-old budget crisis already has forced reductions in research, libraries, outreach, administration and student services. Course sections have been trimmed, faculty salaries have slipped below par and the ratio of students to faculty is up.
With each cut, "California is chipping away at the quality" of its carefully nurtured universities, said UC President Robert C. Dynes.
Student fees, which rose dramatically last year, are expected to jump again at the state's three higher education systems this fall.
At California's community colleges, considered an affordable gateway to higher education for low-income students and new immigrants, student fees would rise 44% -- from $18 to $26 a unit. With fewer course offerings, students often must draw lots to gain access to community college classes.
The budget proposed in January by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for the year beginning July 1 would make further reductions, including financial aid.
In a dramatic change for California, the governor also would require the UC and Cal State systems to turn eligible students away. Schwarzenegger has asked the universities to cut freshman enrollment this fall by 10%, guaranteeing affected students the right to transfer later from community colleges.
Schwarzenegger said the state has no choice and that the retrenchments are temporary.
Some higher education experts agree. The current cuts, they say, do not necessarily mean a dire future for California universities and colleges.
"I think it's more cyclical than any real new thing," said Steve Boilard, director of the higher education unit in the legislative analyst's office in Sacramento.
But many education leaders said the enrollment curbs are undermining the state's 1960 master plan for colleges and universities -- a national model with the implied promise of an affordable place in public higher education for all.
"Year by year, we are eroding the master plan and this incredible system of colleges," said Mark Drummond, chancellor of the state's community colleges system.
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Funding Cuts, Fee Hikes
On a narrow roadway not far from the main entrance to UC Berkeley, a series of parking spaces is proudly reserved for the institution's eight current Nobel laureates.
The slots, each marked "NL," are subtle reminders of the exceptional quality of the scholarship and education the school offers.
The oldest UC campus, UC Berkeley is regularly listed as the nation's top public university in scholarly and popular rankings, including U.S. News & World Report. Six of the UC's eight undergraduate campuses are among the 62 leading research institutions with membership in the invitation-only Assn. of American Universities.
But if the governor's budget is approved, UC's state funding next year will be $2.67 billion -- $520 million, or 16%, less than it was four years ago, even as its enrollment has climbed 16%.
"You try to accommodate each of these small changes," UC President Dynes said. "But we may all sit back in 10 years and say, 'What the hell happened?' "
