How does UC sell $1.3 billion in construction bonds immediately after declaring an “extreme financial emergency,” slashing funds for teaching and research and cutting staff and faculty pay? By using your tuition as collateral. Higher tuition lets UC borrow more for construction even while it cuts instruction and research.The full version is here.
You’re often told that your tuition goes up because the state pays less for higher education, but you’re almost never told that UC isn’t obliged to use your tuition in the way it uses public money. Unlike state funds, your tuition money can also pay the interest on construction bonds and be used as bond collateral.
UC has in fact promised its bond trustee (Bank of New York Mellon Trust) and the companies that rate bonds (S&P and Moody’s) that bondholders have first claim on your tuition in the event of default. It has also promised bondholders that it will raise tuition as needed to avoid bond default. Most importantly, UC has pledged to do nothing to lower the ratings on its bonds. Your tuition is not only pledged to Wall Street, Wall Street could demand the next tuition hike by threatening to lower UC’s Aa1 bond rating.
Harvard, the world’s richest educational corporation, curbed construction when endowments fell because its people and programs came first. Its bond rating, slightly higher than UC’s, does not seem to have suffered. UC, however, seems to have the opposite priorities. It started borrowing against your tuition in spring 2004 -- when Gov. Schwarzenegger gave it a green light to raise tuition, and claims the ability to do this in every prospectus for bonds partially backed by your tuition.
By June 2008, UC’s pledged collateral has jumped by 60% (from $4.2 billion to $6.72 billion). Tuition, a large and growing component of that collateral, will have risen by 109% since 2004 if this year’s increase happens. The Regents have approved another $2B in projects that they plan to fund primarily with tuition-backed bonds, because this is where their debt-bearing capacity will grow. When these new bonds are issued, after your tuition hike is a done deal, debt service on all tuition-backed bonds will have risen to around $430M, nearly double what it was last year. Your tuition and fees make up the largest component of this debt service and the only component that UC has pledged to increase.
Increasing the collateral for bonds and paying more in debt service are clearly among the reasons why the Regents want to raise your tuition. But students would be more likely to resist if they knew this. By describing tuition increases as a simple substitute for state educational funds, UC avoids the question of how much goes for construction, rather than instruction. Don’t be fooled by the argument that UC is simply emulating the great private universities. The ones I know now use their endowment income to subsidize tuition for students who would otherwise need loans: UC, by contrast, now pledges its ability to drive you and your families deeper into debt so that it can increase its leverage on Wall Street. This is what it looks like to privatize a great public university.
Will you go along with this November’s 32% tuition increase, now that you know the money is being promised to Wall Street? It will happen unless you stop it.
provisional home of the College of Debtors in Defiance
Monday, October 12, 2009
"They Pledged Your Tuition"
From Bob Meister, professor of Political and Social Thought at UC Santa Cruz and president of the Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA), a damning exposé of the priorities of the UC administration. Here's the quick version:
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UCB Asministration Blunder:$3 Million Extravagant, Arrogant Spending by UC President Yudof for UCBerkeley Chancellor Birgeneau to Hire Consultants - When Work Can Be Done Internally
ReplyDeleteThese days, every dollar counts. Contact Senate (Ms. Romero 916.651.4105) & Assembly (Ms. Brownley 916.319.2044) Chairperson’s Education Committees or your representatives.
Do the work internally at no additional costs with UCB Academic Senate Leadership (C. Kutz/F. Doyle), the world – class UCB faculty/ staff, & the UCB Chancellor’s bloated staff (G. Breslauer, N. Brostrom, F. Yeary, P. Hoffman, C. Holmes etc) & President Yudof.
President Yudof’s UCB Chancellor should do the high paid work he is paid for instead of hiring expensive East Coast consults to do the work of his job. ‘World class’ smart executives like Chancellor Birgeneau need to do the hard work analysis, and make the tough-minded difficult, decisions to identify inefficiencies.
Where do the $3,000,000 consultants get their recommendations?
From interviewing the UCB senior management that hired them and approves their monthly consultant fees and expense reports. Remember the nationally known auditing firm who said the right things and submitted recommendations that senior management wanted to hear and fooled the public, state, federal agencies?
$3 million impartial consultants never bite the hands (Birgeneau/Yeary) that feed them!
Mr. Birgeneau's accountabilities include "inspiring innovation, leading change." This involves "defining outcomes, energizing others at all levels and ensuring continuing commitment." Instead of deploying his leadership and setting a good example by doing the work of his Chancellor’s job, Mr. Birgeneau outsourced his work to the $3,000,000 consultants. Doesn't he engage UC and UC Berkeley people at all levels to examine inefficiencies and recommend $150 million of trims? Hasn't he talked to Cornell and the University of North Carolina - which also hired the consultants -- about best practices and recommendations that will eliminate inefficiencies?
No wonder the faculty, staff, students, Senate & Assembly are angry and suspicious.
In today’s economy three million dollars is a irresponsible price to pay when a knowledgeable ‘world-class’ UCB Chancellor and his bloated staff do not do the work of their jobs.
Together, we will make a difference.