UC ignores its mission, wastes your money

By Jeff Denham

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California parents, beware! Although you've contributed hard-earned tax dollars for years to fund the University of California, that slot you thought was available for your eligible college-bound child could be sold to an out-of-state student.

Some UC officials are urging cutting enrollment to Californians and increasing it for out-of-staters. UC charges more than double the fees to out-of-state students and that's what's motivating this scheme.

That's simply wrong. And it's immoral, because it all boils down to money. A Californian UC freshman pays $8,100 in fees annually, while an out-of-state student pays $20,000.

Regents who are urging this move have their priorities backwards and are blatantly defying UC's mission to make undergraduate programs available "to all eligible California high-school graduates and community college transfer students who wish to attend the University of California."

UC's duty is to provide quality higher education to California students and the UC should not be dishonoring the system by selling out.

Not only is UC cutting enrollment for in-state students, it is also considering increasing their fees and cutting back on classes, which makes the next revelation shocking: UC workers have recently been paid $600,000 to change offices! According to The Sacramento Bee (Dec. 6, Page B-1) "16 employees (were) paid a total of $682,431 to leave jobs in the UC President's Office." Some of these same employees were rehired at different UC campuses just a few days later, earning more than in their previous positions.

For example, Ingrid H. Schmidt received a five-figure severance package to voluntarily leave her position in Oakland, and then started a new job at UC Davis the next day. She kept $46,100 in severance from the old job, then received a 13 percent raise for her new position.

This is a hard slap in the face to thousands of California students who will be denied entry into the UC system or who have to pay more in tuition. This is an outrageous misuse of taxpayer dollars.

The president for the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles, Robert Stern, said it is "abusing the system" to take a severance from the university and then get rehired.

That's an understatement. The money wasted on high-ranking UC employee severances instead could have been reinvested in the university system to support California students, not used to pay phony severance packages.

It's disappointing that the new UC leadership didn't learn from past pay scandals. The UC president should do what is right and honorable, and he should demand the severance money be returned.

Denham, R-Atwater, represents the 12th Senate District in the state Legislature.