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Calif. Budget Crisis Cripples UC System
By Harry Kimball
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Posted Jul 18, 09 1:48 PM CDT
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(Newser)
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California's budget crisis has taken an $813 million toll on its famed UC system, Time reports. The University of California's 10 campuses are attempting to deal with the 20% budget cut by instituting mandatory furloughs for 80% of staff, drastically cutting or even freezing new hires, and increasing tuition by 10%. Even a budget solution in the capital will likely not affect state funding, which UC officials say is now “exactly where it was in real dollars a decade ago.”
The university system will also be forced to dramatically reduce campus services, including lower-level teaching staff. “Our student-faculty ratio is so high that students may not be able to graduate on time,” UC San Diego's chancellor says. Though the system “continues to be studied around the globe among those who would emulate its success,” concerned officials wrote in an open letter, “this model has been increasingly abandoned at home.”