University Of California

More than 2,000 UCLA employees, including researchers, custodians, nurses and secretaries, gathered at Pauley Pavilion on Wednesday to protest plans for pay cuts and furloughs proposed by the University of California. Because of the state budget crisis, UC leaders are considering three proposals to reduce payroll spending by about $195 million in the next school year.

University of California President Mark G. Yudof on Thursday proposed boosting the university's financial aid program to cover all academic fees for students from families with incomes of less than $60,000 a year. Most low-income UC students already receive such aid, and officials said the plan would make only about 1,100 additional students eligible to have all fees covered.

Grace Obata Amemiya was a pre-nursing student at UC Berkeley in 1942 when she, her family and 120,000 other Japanese Americans were forced from their schools and homes and sent to federal internment camps. The wartime relocations destroyed her childhood dream of a University of California diploma. Amemiya, now 88, joyfully returned to UC on Thursday and was named a graduate six decades late.

In the spirit of the New Reality of today's world, I'd like to propose a change in the California state motto. Instead of "Eureka (I have found it)," which lately has been sounding a little threadbare, how about this one, derived from the glide path of our public systems of higher education: "California -- penny-wise, pound-foolish"?

Freshman enrollment at the University of California will be 6.8% lower this fall, a drop of 2,603 students from last year that closely matches a reduction the university sought because of budget shortfalls, UC officials said Tuesday. In all, 35,435 students from California and other states have told one of UC's nine undergraduate campuses that they intend to enroll as fall freshmen, compared with 38,038 last year.

California's two enormous public university systems could face student fee increases, enrollment caps, reduced class offerings and possible layoffs of part-time instructors if the governor's deficit-cutting budget is adopted. The plan calls for most student fees to rise by 10% at the 23-campus Cal State system and by 7.4% at the 10-campus UC system.

Tens of thousands of Los Angeles students could be on the brink of being qualified to apply to the state's four-year universities, according to a report made public Monday. The report's authors asserted that huge numbers of students could, with the right advice and academic assistance, become bound for the University of California and Cal State University systems. The bad news is that, in too many cases, they aren't getting this help.

In recent job postings published nationwide, ideal candidates for president of the University of California system are described like this: "An individual of uncommon wisdom" to head "the best public research university system in the world." Someone who can provide "visionary and dynamic leadership" to more than 220,000 students and 170,000 professors and staff at 10 campuses, five medical centers and three national energy and weapons labs. Will control a $17-billion annual operating budget.

The University of California may offer some relief to test-weary applicants by shedding part of a 40-year-old requirement for freshman admission. And many high school students are saying amen to that. An influential faculty panel wants to drop two of the standardized exams that all applicants now must take for acceptance at UC's nine undergraduate campuses.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Mark G. Yudof, the head of the University of Texas system, was formally hired Thursday to be the next president of the University of California and given a $828,084 annual compensation package that triggered protests from some students and employees. The Board of Regents voted unanimously to hire Yudof, and its chairman, Richard C.