Dear CrossTalk Editor:
Your lengthy October report, "UC Regents: Lots of Pomp, Little Circumstance," was disappointing. For an organization that purports to provide thoughtful analysis of higher education issues, your report provided little discussion or insight into the challenges of governing a major research university. Rather, you chose to dwell on innuendo and to haphazardly string together a series of actions taken by different groups of regents over a 30-year period.
One would expect more from a "Higher Education Policy Center" than potshots at the shape of the Regents meeting table and an attack on the legitimate needs to keep personnel and litigation matters private as called for under California law. Your article ignored administrative compensation reforms and successful cost-cutting efforts that have kept the university's doors open to all qualified students and allowed them to graduate at a faster pace than ever before, despite devastating state budget cuts.
You failed to mention in your article, for example, that since May of 1992 the Regents have adopted 19 reforms in executive compensation and have consistently hired senior administrators at or below the salaries of their predecessors. In the last four years, state-funded jobs in the university have been cut by 13 percent, including a 17.6 percent reduction in executive positions.
Moreover, the University has made permanent budget reductions totalling $433 million in response to state funding cuts since 1991. As a result, when adjusted for inflation, UC has been able to cut its cost of instruction per student by 12 percent, while still offering admission to all qualified California high school graduates. At the same time, 75 percent of entering freshmen are earning degrees, the highest percentage in over a century, and they are doing it in an average of 4.3 years. Through these difficult times, maintaining the quality of a UC education continued to be a priority for the Regents. We succeeded in meeting that charge.
As caretakers of what we believe to be California's most valuable educational and economic resource, we know full well that higher education faces monumental challenges in the years ahead. We do not pretend to have all the answers. More than ever before we need reasoned, thoughtful and constructive input to the process of meeting our state's educational needs.
Sincerely,
Meredith J. Khachigian
Chairman, The Regents of the University of California, 1991Ð1993
Clair W. Burgener
Chairman, The Regents of the University of California
Roy T. Brophy
Chairman, The Regents of the University of California, 1989Ð1991
Howard H. Leach
Chairman, The Regents of the University of California, 1993Ð1995