Chancellor's Message

The California State University is a leader in providing access to quality education for California’s students. Given the vast number of students that it prepares for success in the workforce, the CSU is vital to California’s economic prosperity—and an investment in the CSU represents an investment in the future of California.

Each year the CSU must decide how to reconcile significant indicators of unmet need with the reality of dollars most likely to be available to address those needs. Over the past three years, the university has lost previously provided funds from the state and has been required to pay unavoidable costs that erased over $500 million from its budget. If the current 2004/05 budget remains unchanged, the structural funding shortfall at the university (which includes the mandatory cost obligations that went unfunded over the last three years) will be more than $900 million in 2005/06—exacerbating the loss of funds the CSU has already experienced and creating a financial drag on any efforts to address areas of unmet need.

The challenge for the Board of Trustees and the administration at the CSU is to develop a financial strategy that is sensitive to the fiscal pressures confronting the university and does not compromise the CSU’s ability to maximize the resources it can legitimately expect to receive from the state.

Over the past several months, the CSU has worked with the governor, his administration, legislative leaders, and representatives from all of the CSU’s constituencies to look realistically at the state’s economic environment. In doing so, we will decide how to articulate the needs of the university and determine how best to guarantee the university receives a fair share of state resources. This budget plan submitted for 2005/06 is based on the results of those conversations. It begins the process of recapturing the promise of California’s higher education master plan.