Over the past decade, the California State University has seen a decrease of about $650 million in state general funding support, a student fee increase of about $2,500 and an increase of about 100,000 enrolled students.

By Sergio Cabaruvias

Daily Titan News Director

Faculty and staff furloughs, a 32 percent student fee increase, enrollment cuts and class reductions are all in place as the California State University system tries to grapple with its most significant budget woes in its history.

“It’s the state!” Cal State Fullerton President Milton Gordon said before explaining that the massive cut is derived from the state’s efforts to eliminate the $26.3 billion budget gap.

Over the summer, state general fund support to the California State University system decreased from $2.9 billion to $1.6 billion, an amount lower than that supplied a decade ago when the university had about a fifth fewer students, the CSU Web site states. With aid from the federal government and other sources, however, the CSU is facing a revenue shortfall of $564 million.

To fill the “unprecedented” budget shortfall it faced as a result of the state budget cuts, CSU has taken measures that include furlough days for nearly all of its 47,000 employees, a 32 percent increase to the student fee, planned enrollment cuts that include the closure of spring enrollment, and system-wide budget reductions, Vice President for Academic Affairs Ephraim Smith said.

Because employee salaries and benefits account for 85 percent of CSU’s budget expenditures, employee furloughs are expected to generate $275 million, Gordon stated in a letter to the CSUF community.

The California Faculty Association, a union that represents 23,000 CSU employees, stated on July 24 that 54 percent of its voting members approved the furlough plan proposed by CSU. The plan calls for faculty to take 18 normally-paid work days as unpaid days off, which decreases their salaries by 9.23 percent for the 2009-10 year.

Every other employee at Cal State Fullerton will also be taking an equivalent of two furlough days per month except campus police, graduate assistants and teaching assistants, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs James Dietz said.

Students can expect offices and services to be closed several Fridays throughout the semester as part of the furlough plan for CSU. (See related story on Page One and the furlough calendar on page 3.)

Over the summer, the undergraduate fee for a full-time California resident student was increased from $3,048 last year to $4,026 for this academic year. In 1999, the same fee was $1,428.

The total fee increase is an accumulation of multiple increases that have been passed by the CSU Board of Trustees since May – the last of which was announced after many students had registered, causing expressions of frustration from the student body.

“I’m kind of S.O.L. because my financial aid only gave me enough for books, but now that they increased (student fees) I don’t have enough for books. So I have to come up with that on my own,” Chris Brabant, a history major said before stating he would buy his books with credit.

A group of CSU students filed a lawsuit earlier this month against the CSU’s Board of Trustees for raising fees after students had already been billed. The lawsuit claims that the act was a breach of contract and cites a ruling by the California Court of Appeals which found against the University of California in a similar case last year, the CFA reported.

A third of the increase will be funneled to financial aid. “This set aside, as well as increases in financial aid included in the federal stimulus package, is expected to fully cover the fee increase for 187,000 of CSU’s 450,000 total students,” Gordon stated.

The plan to fill the CSU shortfall includes cuts to enrollment.

Last year, prior to the state’s proposed cut to funding, CSU had already stated that it would cut enrollment by 10,000 students this fall.

That number has risen to 40,000 over the next two years, Chancellor Charles B. Reed said.

To meet that goal, spring enrollment has been closed across the entire system, Smith said.

“Last year we took in 3,184 students in the spring. This year we might take in about 125 (for the teacher credential program). That is a net decrease of about 3,000 students in the spring. So we’ll be closing a number of sections that would normally open for these students,” Smith said.

After stating that a goal of the CSU is to not be committed to funding more students than the state will be paying for, Smith explained why impaction plans are currently being designed.

“We open for fall 2010 admission this October 1. How many should we accept? We don’t really know that much about next year’s budget except it could be bad. So we’re putting impaction plans in place in case we have to use them to control enrollment,” he said.

The Board of Trustees took an additional step to decrease enrollment when it “approved changes to state regulations that will preclude students from enrolling in courses once they have met all the necessary degree requirements by allowing campus presidents to confer their degree,” Gordon stated.

Furlough days, student fee increases and enrollment cuts are expected to fill all but about $180 million of the $564 million shortfall. The remainder falls to the 23 campuses to eliminate from their budgets, Reed said.

CSUF is responsible for cutting $36.5 million from its budget, Gordon said. To do that, he added, “we are reducing all activities across the campus. There will be a reduction in travel. Only necessary travel will take place. There will be other kinds of reductions in cost to try and fill up the holes that are left. It will create priorities for the future that will come as a result of the situation we are in now.”

Academic Affairs at CSUF will be cutting their budget by $12.5 million, which is in addition to last year’s $17 million cut, Smith said.

“When (students) come on Monday, they’ll find fewer seats available in classes. These cuts are very deep. They have been for a while. Everything we do is being affected. Next year might even be a more difficult year than this coming year,” he added. “We have no equipment money. This year we’ll probably order fewer books for the library. We have to ride out the financial storm in California and do the best we can. Our number one priority is to deliver a quality education to students.”