Chancellor Charles Reed proposed a 20 percent fee increase today for students, soon after he announced that the system would cut enrollment by 40,000 students. 

The San Jose Mercury News is reporting that the proposed fee hike would represent an overall 32 percent fee increase and potentially raising tuition by $672 a year, pushing the total amount to $4,026.

From the San Jose Mercury News:

But a CSU education remains a good value. Tuition and fees at Oregon State University total $6,725; the State University of New York charges $4,970. An undergraduate UC education costs $8,720 and Stanford University is $36,000.

At CSU, financial aid will soften the impact on lower-income students. The higher fees will be felt primarily by students whose families earn over $75,000 a year.

Of course, the UC system is facing a budgetary crisis of its own in having to close a $813 million budget gap this year. Just today, the entire UC Board of Regents approved a sliding-scale furlough plan that would affect about 108,000 employees. The regents also approved a fee increase of 9.3 percent in May.

There was talk that UC officials were considering a 20 to 25 percent increase on top of that in time for fall, but in a press conference last Friday, UC president Mark Yudof said that consideration was no longer on the table. 

However, there may be another fee increase in January 2010, he said, as the state cuts begins to worsen as Yudof said the state’s issuances of IOUS for Cal Grants may cost the UC system up to $125 million, of which it will pull from reserve accounts. 

He announced today the UC system will front students the money. 

A letter from  23 UCSD professors sent anymoulsy to the Merced Sun-Star suggests that the UC Office of the President close its newest campus, UC Merced, in order to balance its growing $813 million deficit. 

According to an article in the Merced Sun-Star:

As part of a three-point plan, the professors suggested that either one or two campuses should be closed to create an eight- or nine-campus system. They also put Riverside and Santa Cruz on the chopping block.

However, UC President Mark Yudof is not up to closing the Merced campus, which opened in 2005. 

“I am 100 percent behind Merced, Riverside and Santa Cruz, and do not see the call to reduce expenditures on those campuses, beyond their proportionate share of the systemwide deficit, as a solution to our budgetary ills,” Yudof said in a statement to the Sun-Star.

This recent suggestion comes at a time when the UC system is facing an unprecedented, and looking to implement systemwide salary cuts and employee furloughs. The UC Board of Regents already passed a 9.3 percent student fee increase in effect for the fall semester and/or quarter, but UC officials have also considered changing that amount to a larger fee hike, 20 to 25 percent. 

The board is expected to vote on employee furloughs and salary cuts next week. 

With its reputation for dominating the Sloan Fellowship, UC Berkeley seems to do well when it comes to award-winning researchers who aren’t too many years out of grad school.

Today, three young researchers, two from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and one from UC Berkeley, were given top honors by President Obama. They are among 100 recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers.

Sanjay Kumar, UC Berkeley assistant professor of bioengineering, won the award in the Department of Defense category.

LBNL scientists Cecilia Aragon and Jeffrey B. Neaton won Department of Energy awards.

“These extraordinarily gifted young scientists and engineers represent the best in our country,” Obama said in a statement. “With their talent, creativity, and dedication, I am confident that they will lead their fields in new breakthroughs and discoveries and help us use science and technology to lift up our nation and our world.”

Resolutions made by councilmembers were not given to the public, the media, or the council, until hours before the vote was set to happen. Under council law, resolutions and amendments must be given out four days before the voting date.

Therefore no vote could be taken.

As the date is pushed back again, the thought on everyone’s mind is: which plan are they going to choose?

The council must decide which plan they will use as the basis for the final draft. They are choosing from the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC)’s version and the Planning Commission’s version.

Residents have voiced their opinions at every meeting since May, when the plan was first brought to the council. The DAPAC plan is the favorite among residents, who say it is a collaborative effort that calls for the wants and needs of the people.

Currently, the council is using the commission’s version, with some amendments and resolutions councilmembers have added.

Because of the council’s decisions, residents threatened a referendum at last night’s meeting.

A vote is set for the July 14 meeting.

Laura Tyson, professor in the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and a member of of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory board, suggested today that another federal stimulus package may be necessary to pull the economy out of the hole.

Bloomberg News is reporting that Tyson said in a Singapore event today that the February $787 billion economic stimulus package was too small to make a difference.
From Bloomberg News:

“The economy is worse than we forecast on which the stimulus program was based,” Tyson, who is a member of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory board, told the Nomura Equity Forum. “We probably have already 2.5 million more job losses than anticipated.”

According to Bloomberg News, Tyson said a new stimulus package could be in the works.

Tyson, 62, later told reporters that the U.S. can afford to pay for a second package, even as the fiscal deficit soars. She said the budget shortfall is “likely to be worse” than the equivalent of 12 percent of gross domestic product that the administration forecast for 2009 and the 8 percent to 9 percent it projected for next year.

Tyson is currently the S. K. and Angela Chan Chair in Global Management in the Haas Business and Public Policy Group, part of the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.