Responses To The Crisis Facing California Higher Education:
Support For Using Revenue From Student Fees To Fund Improvements To The
Direct Benefit Of Students Attending The California State University

AS-2149-93/GA - May 6-7, 1993

WHEREAS, A candid and realistic appraisal of the evidence at hand requires the conclusion that California's commitment to generous support for a high quality higher education has been substantially lost, and will not be recovered in the reasonably foreseeable future; and

WHEREAS, Without a significant enhancement of the revenues received from students, either the quality of instruction in the California State University will be unacceptably reduced, or access will be artificially and unacceptably reduced as professors are laid off and classes are canceled due to budget reductions; and

WHEREAS, The Trustees of the California State University have responded to this new policy environment by adopting on March 17, 1993, a policy entitled "Quality and Affordability: Policies for Pricing and Strategies for Paying"; and

WHEREAS, As a part of its broader policy statement, "Quality and Affordability: Policies for Pricing and Strategies for Paying" the CSU Board of Trustees included a section on "Principles for a New Pricing Structure"; and

WHEREAS, The first such principle for a new pricing structure is that state appropriation funding would determine the number of students who could attend CSU and fee revenue would fund improvements to the direct benefit of students attending CSU; and

WHEREAS, The principle of using student fee revenue to improve and directly benefit the education of students appropriately contemplates that the responsibility to provide access to higher education belongs to the state; and

WHEREAS, Improvements in the campus educational program are greatly needed after the past five years of "steady and precipitous erosion in the state financing necessary to fulfill the promise and vision contained in the Master Plan for Higher Education," as well-stated by this state's higher education leadership in their joint paper, "The Golden State At Risk" (February, 1993); therefore be it

RESOLVED, That the Academic Senate of the California State University endorse the principle that state appropriation funding would determine the number of students who could attend CSU and fee revenue would fund improvements to the direct benefit of students attending CSU, as stated in the March 17, 1993 policy adopted by the Board of Trustees of the California State University.

APPROVED WITHOUT DISSENT -- May 6, 1993