UC Regents approve plan to add 10000 California undergrads

The University of California Board of Regents on Thursday approved a plan to increase the number of California undergraduates in the system.

Debora Obley, interim associate vice president of Energy and Sustainability at UCOP, said she thinks campus officials will adjust by hiring temporary faculty and lecturers to ensure budgeted ratios are sustained. Over time, the UC system will use a portion of its annual state funding to pay back $400 million it is borrowing for the project over 40 years and the campus itself will pay $137 million.

UC officials on Thursday did not offer details on how many extra students each campus will take, saying that will take more study over the next couple of months. An additional 2,500 would be added each of the following two school years.

Student regent Avi Oved said he would vote for the plan, but he criticized it as a hasty political move that could devalue the quality of education at the university and failed to address issues of affordability that many current students are already struggling with. The plan includes a provision that allows the UC to raise out-of-state tuition by up to 8 percent annually through the 2019-2020 academic year.Enrollment and financial aid The UC plans to increase resident enrollment by 10,000 students by the academic year 2018-2019.

The board also approved the 2016-17 budget and a three-year financial sustainability plan, which outlines an enrollment plan aiming for in-state student growth of 5,000 students by next year, per the the funding framework agreed upon by the state and the university earlier this year.

To balance its budget, UC also plans to phase out the tuition grants it gives to low-income students from other states – which, when fully implemented, would give UC about $36 million per year to spend elsewhere. And most of the money is raised by individual campuses, rather than by the UC Office of the President, he added.

The $1.14-billion proposal to double UC Merced’s physical capacity is unusual since a single master developer will be chosen to oversee the design, building and long-term maintenance of the project.

UC Merced, the youngest of UC’s10 campuses, opened in 2005 and now enrolls about 6,600 students on its San Joaquin Valley campus.

About 919,000 square feet of new space is expected to be built by 2020. “That imperative is the driving force behind the proposal to increase access for Californians, to sustain that expanded access and to maintain the excellence of what is commonly considered to be the best research university in the world”. UC aims to cover the other half through increased private donations to the university’s operating fund and higher tuition for out-of-state students, among other sources.