Paying for Space: A Brief Framing the Issues and Opportunities in Capital Finance for Higher Education in California
December 13, 2017
Download The debate about how much it will cost to ensure that California’s public higher education systems can meet all students’ needs often focuses on the funds needed for regular operations—items like employee salaries, benefits, and other regular operating costs. But there is another massive expense looming on the horizon: an immense and pressing need…
Counting Past Each Other: How Inconsistent Reporting Creates Confusion about Higher Education Finance
November 15, 2017
Download Recent public opinion research shows an alarming trend of rising public mistrust of our nation’s colleges and universities—a mistrust sparked by increases in tuitions and the perception of eroding value of higher education. Underlying these concerns is a growing problem of miscommunication between state officials, institutional leaders, and the public about where money…
Perceptions About the Financing of California’s Public University Systems: Opinion Research with Key Stakeholders, Engaged Voters, and Students
October 17, 2017
Download California is in the grip of a paradox – a college education has never been more important to have, but has never felt harder to get. With more qualified students than ever seeking a constrained number of seats, many students and their families worry that the opportunity that higher education offers will elude them….
Appendix to Securing the Public Trust: Practical Steps toward Higher Education Finance Reform in California
January 24, 2017
View Resource This appendix to Securing the Public Trust: Practical Steps toward Higher Education Finance Reform in California, provides source data and analyses supplemental to the report. Click below to view the framing report from College Futures Foundation. Together with this appendix, the report aims to support a candid, productive dialogue by presenting a comprehensive…
Securing the Public Trust: Practical Steps toward Higher Education Finance Reform in California
January 24, 2017
The system for financing our public universities in California isn’t working. If we want our next generation of students to succeed and if we want our state to be competitive in the global economy, we will need to tackle this issue. We must start by building a shared understanding between public policy makers and higher education leaders of the problem as well as practical ways to solve it.
Recent Statewide Reforms in Higher Education Financing and Accountability: Emerging Lessons from the States
January 9, 2017
View Resource This paper, by Jane Wellman and Darcie Harvey, examines reforms to historic approaches of paying for higher education in other states with the goal of finding and highlighting relevant lessons that California can apply to its current higher education financing efforts. Historically, financing higher education has been left primarily to the states. Because…
Historic Dynamics Shaping the Higher Education Budget in California
January 9, 2017
Download The California state budget for higher education has gone through a number of iterations over the years, from the early days when both university systems were funded almost entirely from state general funds to the current day. The behavioral and fiscal attributes of the current process bear many traces of this history. This brief…
Improving Equity: Increasing Baccalaureate Attainment of Underrepresented Students in California
January 9, 2017
DOWNLOAD Low-income and first-generation college students—most of whom come from racial or ethnic groups that have historically been underrepresented in higher education—are the face of California’s future. Although now the majority of high school graduates, their baccalaureate attainment rates are only one-third of those belonging to White and Asian students. Meanwhile, California faces a looming…
Toward a New Cross-Sector Partnership for Student Success
January 9, 2017
View Resource California’s Master Plan for Higher Education envisioned a cohesive “system.” But California higher education is in fact more of a loose federation rather than a unified system. In earlier decades, this loose federation served the needs of the sectors and the state reasonably well. But since then, California’s economy has changed, its demographics…
Prospects for State General Fund Revenues for Higher Education
January 9, 2017
Download California’s General Fund revenue and expenditure trend lines create an uncertain trajectory that is unlikely to both meet expected costs and provide for significant increase in students for the state’s public university systems. This paper by Mark Hill, California State Department of Finance (retired), reviews past and possible future trends affecting General Fund availability…