Gordon Talks Budget

Cal State Fullerton President Milton A. Gordon joined CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed and other education, business and community leaders on Tuesday, May 24, in Sacramento to meet with legislators and the governor in opposition to further budget cuts to the CSU.

Both the governor and the Legislature previously reached agreement to cut $500 million in state support for the CSU for the 2011-12 fiscal year. Cal State Fullerton’s share of those cuts comes to $35 million.

Coping with that reduced state support has required a series of painful measures, from reducing admissions; eliminating faculty, staff and student positions and non-essential travel; and making large cuts in operations and expenditures, to raising tuition fees for fall 2011 and instituting a hiring freeze.

In his May revise, the governor also warned that if his proposed temporary tax extensions are rejected, the CSU would face an additional $500 million cut, bringing the total fiscal year reduction in state support to $1 billion.

Upon his return from meeting with the governor in Sacramento, CSUF President Milton A. Gordon released the following statement today, May 25, in a letter to the campus community:

“While I was encouraged by our meeting yesterday with Gov. Brown, the consequences of an additional $500 million cut in state support would be dire.

“Such an unprecedented cut will cause long-term damage to the CSU and would mean a total fiscal year reduction of $70 million in state support for Cal State Fullerton.

“While tuition increases will offset part of the reduction, a cut of this magnitude would be devastating to the university.

“Earlier this month, the CSU outlined a contingency plan of action to address the worst-case prospect of an ‘all-cuts’ budget. The plan calls for suspending winter and spring admissions and instituting an additional tuition fee increase of up to 32 percent — on top of the 10 percent tuition fee hike already approved for fall 2011.

“Such a worst-case scenario could see the CSU turn away 20,000 qualified applicants who would otherwise enroll for the winter/spring 2012 terms.

“And all students would face significantly higher fees. The additional increase would bring overall tuition fees for a full-time undergraduate to $6,450, plus campus fees, for the academic year — an increase of $1,566 for each student beyond the costs already approved for the next academic year.

“We understand that we all need to be part of the solution, and we stand ready to manage the proposed cuts as best we can.

“The CSU is committed to reducing our costs, and faculty and staff have been working hard to serve more students without any new dollars. The CSU is currently serving over 70,000 more students with the same level of state support it had in 1999.

“The state’s public universities are one of the few public institutions that can actually help grow California’s economy by preparing well-trained workers in both private and public sectors.

“Cal State Fullerton has been a team player during the budget deliberations to this point, as have the other 22 CSU campuses. However, we cannot sustain greater cuts without damaging the long-term health of the state and its economy.

“Each year, CSU graduates more than 92,000 students into the workforce — a number that will be drastically reduced in the future if we cannot enroll and graduate enough qualified students. This would also put the state further behind in delivering the one million more college graduates it needs by 2025 to compete economically at the national and global levels.

“This is, indeed, a bleak picture, but it is an honest assessment of where we are today and where we might be if our elected officials do not come together on a final budget that balances the need to reduce expenditures and the importance of continued investment in the future of our state and its people.”

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Media Contact:

Christopher Bugbee, Public Affairs, 657-278-8487 or cbugbee@fullerton.edu