8:12pm | The California State University system announced Tuesday that it would enroll about 10,000 fewer students for the 2011-12 school year to help absorb a $500 million cut in state funding.
The news was issued locally during the CSU Board of Trustees meeting, where administrators outlined strategies for the 23-school system to deal with the 18-percent reduction in state funding as outlined in the governor’s proposed budget package. The budget gap, however, will actually total $550 million once $50 million in mandatory costs, including increased energy and employee health premiums, have been factored in.
The CSU received $2.8 billion from the state for the current 2010-11 school year.
The enrollment reduction is estimated to save roughly $60 million and represents just 2.4 percent of the roughly 420,000 students enrolled this year, CSU spokesman Michael Uhlenkamp said.
All 23 campuses are being instructed to reduce their budgets by a cumulative $281 million, which officials said would likely result in fewer course sections, larger class sizes and fewer faculty and staff.
The CSU plans to apply an estimated $142 million of net financial aid revenue from a tuition increase already approved for the fall to its budget reduction efforts, Uhlenkamp said. This would leave the system with a $400 million gap.
Another $10.8 million would be saved through cuts to the Chancellor’s office budget, representing a 14.8 percent reduction that Uhlenkamp said is proportionately more than the campus reductions because the office does not receive student fee revenues.
Should the state increase the amount of funding it has proposed to cut, the situation would become that much more grave, officials said.
If the proposed funding cut doubles to $1 billion, for example, the state Legislative Analyst’s Office has recommended that the public university system slash enrollment by another 5 percent, hike up tuition by another 10 percent (a separate 10-percent increase was already approved to take effect next fall) and cut staff compensation by 5 percent.
“This type of cut would have long-lasting effects on the level of access and service that CSU can provide students and would negatively impact California’s economy,” Chancellor Charles Reed said.
Undergraduate tuition at all CSU schools has nearly doubled between 2007-08 and 2011-12, jumping from $2,772 to $4,884. Employee layoffs and furloughs, as well as enrollment reductions, have also been used over the past two years to fight the effects of the state’s seemingly never-ending monetary woes.