What the University of California Regents began contemplating this week is so grim it is almost surreal, and it ought to serve as a warning to us all about just how bad things may get in California unless the Legislature finds the two-thirds vote for a tax increase.

It would be bad enough if the country's premier public university system were simply losing funds -- as is likely -- to accommodate any new enrollment growth. In human terms, that means 5,000 students could be turned away next year, bringing the number of entering students down from a projected 47,000 to 42,000.

But now, the state Department of Finance, in grim reaper fashion, has put UC (and the California State University system) on notice that next year's budget may well require an additional 20 percent decrease in funding. That would follow on cuts over the past three years totaling 14 percent of the system's budget, which were absorbed at the same time the system saw an 18 percent enrollment increase.
A new 20 percent cut could be covered, UC administrators told regents Wednesday, by raising student fees another $4,000 a year (on top of the 40 percent increase they just got, to $5,400 a year); by closing three of the system's smaller campuses; or by shutting out 60,000 new students. How the system would even accomplish that is unclear, since that number is actually larger than the freshmen classes at all 10 campuses combined.

The regents aren't apt to do anything that Draconian. But if such a large cut comes to pass, they will consider lowering faculty salaries -- which already lag in comparison to comparable institutions nationwide -- and letting faculty go; asking professors to teach more courses (a good idea); raising out-of-state tuition above the cost of providing an education and using the margin to subsidize in-state enrollment growth (another good idea); cutting administration, outreach and maintenance; and further slashing a state research budget that has already been cut by $60 million -- 20 percent -- over the past two years.

That last idea ought to alarm legislators on both sides of the aisle. Surely they understand that innovation and entrepreneurship will be the lifeline that pulls California out of its economic doldrums. There's not a big industry in California -- computer technology, agriculture, biotechnology, entertainment, telecommunications, aerospace, semiconductors, environmental technology -- whose success hasn't been shaped or propelled in some way by UC, the students it educates or the innovative culture that surrounds its campuses.

We may not know who our governor will be, much less the specifics of next year's budget. But let's agree that we can't afford to allow such an integral part of California's entrepreneurial engine, which holds so much promise to get us on the road to prosperity once more, to fall any further into disrepair.