California

University of California, revered worldwide for excellence, considers a bleak future as budget cuts threaten programs, recruitment, retention and access.

Budget cuts are taking their toll on City College of San Francisco, where limited course offerings bar student access and unfilled vacancies leave jobs undone.

Years of political infighting between unions, lawmakers and system leaders come to a head at California State, and Sacramento is a particular hot spot.

Nearly all California community colleges enrolled more students than the state paid for this academic year. Relative to their size, however, some two-year institutions are taking on significantly more of the state's nearly 202,000 unfunded students than others, despite the increased risk of doing so.

DAVIS, CALIF. -- The receptionist who once sat outside Stan Nosek’s office has been replaced … by a bell.

“Please ring for service,” a small sign reads.

Nosek, special assistant to the chancellor at the University of California’s Davis campus, walks past the bell and points toward several cubicles that once housed employees.

“Empty,” he says.

“Empty,” pointing toward another.

A few strides.

“Empty.”

A faculty report has stirred some racial tensions at Sonoma State University, following claims from its author that the institution’s administration has deliberately targeted those from higher-income families as potential students for the past decade. In this process, the report claims that the university has become the “whitest” public institution in California, effectively preferring white students to minorities in an admission practice that it deems “reverse affirmative action.”

Last fall, the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office announced what some perceived as a partial solution to the budget-related enrollment restrictions that threatened to disrupt the educational plans of many students.

College presidents, faculty/staff unions and state education leaders rarely agree about anything. But mutual frustration with a regional accreditor has united strange bedfellows in California’s community college sector.

Amid fears of a possible “double-dip” recession and simmering anti-tax sentiment, community colleges with pressing facilities needs are deciding they cannot risk a defeat in a bond vote – and so are not going before voters on this November’s ballot to ask for the funds to properly address them.