Cal State Long Beach administrators and faculty are treading carefully as class cuts, financial aid changes and additional fees become an option in the event of a $481 million loss in funding from the state and the elimination of Cal Grants.
In response to California voters rejecting five of the six May 19 special election propositions that attempted to balance the state budget, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed cutting $481 million in funding for the California State University system, as well as eliminating Cal Grants entirely.
“The governor’s proposal poses a real threat to the state’s future economy,” the California Postsecondary Education Commission said before the state budget conference committee on June 1.
In addition, CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed spoke at the conference, alongside the leaders of the UC and the California Community Colleges systems.
“The massive cuts before you cannot be absorbed without major reductions in enrollment in the California State University,” he told California lawmakers. “Now, if you look at the $481 billion cut that the governor has recommended for the year 2009-10, it is the equivalent of us reducing the CSU by 60,000 students. That’s impossible.”
Reed urged for a decision to be made quickly.
“I do not want to ask you the impossible, but I do want to ask you to help us,” Reed said. “Give us the number that we have to live with, and give it to us as soon as you can.”
Vice Provost David Dowell echoed the seriousness of the proposed cuts.
“The difficulty for us is the governor is proposing very large additional reductions,” Dowell said. “It’s a very chilling picture that he’s painting.”
Dowell said that the proposal may spark more fee increases.
“I think it’s possible that [the CSU system] will pursue additional fees,” Dowell said.
Dowell added that CSULB partially prepared during the spring for “a worsening scenario and so to the extent that our plans are adequate, then the students will not feel that part of it.”
“But it does appear that the May revise exceeds our contingency plans” Dowell said.
He said that the revisions haven’t been factored into the university’s current cuts to classes.
“We’re not sure what that’s going to mean and whether the system is able to buffer this for us in any way,” Dowell said. “We do expect that there will be some additional impact from the May revise.”
According to Reed, the CSU’s first priority is to “offer as many classes and sections as we possibly can to serve as many students as we can, and secondly, to protect all of the jobs we can.”
Dowell also emphasized that classes are a priority but said, “I can’t really say that there won’t be additional impacts; I wish I could.”
Dowell said that other options include not rehiring temporary staff, as well as cutting back on travel and operating expenses.
“We attempt as much as possible to do these in ways that minimize the harm to human beings, he said.
At CSULB, several departments have asked students to enroll in classes as soon as possible in attempt to avoid class cancellations. The enrollment curve seems to be a week ahead of the normal trend, Dowell said.
According to Dowell, 184 fall sections have been cut so far, with the majority being classes for freshmen in areas such as the liberal arts, mathematics and natural sciences.
“We’re taking the reductions where we are reducing students,” Dowell said. “We make these cuts based on where we think they will do the least harm.”
So far, cancellations made have been based on the governor’s initial budget proposal, but more cuts is a possibility under the May revise. According to Dowell, cuts are decided within individual colleges, and sometimes within departments.
The sociology department recently cancelled four of their fall classes with low enrollment but ensured that sections of each course were still available, said Carole Campbell, department co-chair, via e-mail.
“The classes that were cancelled were carefully selected so as to reduce the negative impact on our majors and our curriculum as much as possible,” Campbell said. “We made every effort to minimize the problems these cancellations created for our students.”
The psychology department has cut approximately 20 classes since fall 2008, according to Kenneth Green, department chair. He said in an e-mail that the department followed the same procedure, removing only classes with low enrollment and have other sections with available seats.
This fall, the department will have to drop 10 part-time faculty positions because fewer classes will be offered, Green said. According to Dowell, about 70 to 90 part-time faculty will not be offered employment in the fall.
“We are pessimistic about the fallout from the governor’s budget message coming in two weeks,” Green said.
Another part of Schwarzenegger’s budget message — the plan to phase out Cal Grants — would save the state $173 million for the 2009-2010 academic year and $450 million the following academic year.
The grants awarded to 118,000 incoming fall freshmen would be the first eliminated, but the proposal allows current Cal Grant recipients to renew their awards depending on each individual’s financial need and academic standing.
Renewed awards for the approximately 83,000 CSU and University of California grant recipients will not accommodate the CSU’s 10 percent and the UC’s 9.3 percent fall fee increases.
Mary Stephens, CSULB vice president for administration and finance, said that for the 2008-2009 school year, approximately 8,680 CSULB students received a total of $18.9 million in Cal Grant A and B awards, and B stipends. The stipends are a “living allowance,” while the other awards offset university fees. About 37 percent of the Cal Grant A recipients and 32 percent of the Cal Grant B recipients were first-time awardees.
According to Stephens, the passing of the proposal could potentially affect financial aid packages for non-Cal Grant recipients as well.
Students who receive Cal Grants are ineligible for state university grants, which are administered by the CSU, but may still need financial aid if they find they are left without a Cal Grant. For the 2008-2009 school year, about 9,300 students were awarded the university grant, which totaled $27.4 million.
“If we had known that the state wouldn’t have provided Cal Grants, we would have provided university grants differently,” Stephens said. “It will certainly create an operational challenge for us … and for the students.”
Stephens said that at this point, she does not know whether the university grants will have to be recalculated. She added that she fears the loss of Cal Grants will keep students from attending school. Dowell also expressed concern that it would harm students.
“Taking anything out of the financial aid mix means a reshuffling of awards in such a way that, ironically, probably the neediest students will continue to be protected,” Dowell said, “but the students who get hurt are the ones who are in just above whatever cutoff then gets established, and those are pretty needy kids too.”
