Battle over a Budget

California residents have long taken pride in the quality and quantity of their state's higher education and in their willingness to spend vast sums of public money to keep it as good as it is. But when Ronald Reagan became Califor nia's Governor this month, he came face to face with two striking facts: a budget deficit that could reach $400 million in the next fiscal year, and an expensive complex of colleges and universities that consumes about $400 million a year and yet does not charge students a single penny of tuition.* Putting two and two together, Reagan last week proposed to take a healthy whack at the funds doled out to higher education and to break a century-old tradition by charging students at the nine-campus university a tuition of $400 per year.

Reagan's budgetry proposals, as outlined by Finance Director Gordon P. Smith at a special meeting of the regents in Los Angeles last week, call for a cut in the state's contribution to the university from this year's $240 million to $192 million--a 20% slash and nearly a third less than what University President Clark Kerr and the regents had sought. To make up the difference, Smith proposed to take $22 million from a special regents' reserve fund and save $5,000,000 more by delaying Berkeley's scheduled shift to a quarter system this summer. Smith argued that the proposed tuition charge would bring in an additional $30 million, $10 million of which could be used to provide scholarships for needy students.

How to Share It? Reagan argued that tuition made educational as well as financial sense. At a press conference, he hinted that students might appreciate their schooling more if they had to pay for at least part of it. "There's nothing wrong with young people beginning to have a responsibility to the cost of their education," he said. Moreover, he argued, "there is no such thing as free education. There is costly education, and the question is how you share the cost and who pays for the cost."

The proposals touched off a statewide uproar. At the regents' meeting, President Kerr bluntly answered that the cuts would mean the denial of admission next year to 10,000 new students and 12,500 present ones. Kerr also contended that tuition would only send more students into the 72 community-supported junior colleges, which, in turn, would force local governments to raise property taxes--taxes that Reagan assailed in his campaign as too high already. U.C.L.A.'s Chancellor Franklin Murphy said he would have to shut down evening extension courses, cut back student health services, delay expansion of medical school enrollment. Noting that faculty recruiting has already been hurt by rumors of retrenchment, he exclaimed: "I do not intend to preside at the liquidation or substantial erosion of the quality which 50 years of extraordinary effort have created in building a great university in Los Angeles."

False Economy. Los Angeles Regent Edward Carter argued against using the regents' fund "just to balance the state budget one year," pointed out that it had financed such pioneering projects as Physicist Ernest Lawrence's cyclotron studies. Financier Norton Simon, calling on his own business experience, warned against any budgeting that reduces the quality of the product. "I wouldn't tear down the very root of what's been built," he declared. "This is the falsest kind of economy."

The new budget had the unexpected side effect of unifying--at least for the moment--the university's often divided students, administrators and regents. Students attending the regents' meeting warmly applauded Kerr and gave a standing ovation to Simon, who conceded that the cheers were "a new experience" for him as a regent. More than 1,000 undergraduates at relatively staid U.C.L.A. held the largest protest rally of the year and, predicted one senior, "kids here who haven't been activists are going to be."

Hung in Effigy. There was an equal ferment at the 18 state colleges, whose $176 million budget Reagan proposes to cut by $6,000,000 (the colleges are seeking a $37 million increase) in addition to imposing a tuition of about $200. Reagan was hung in effigy at

Fresno State, and the college's Chancellor Glenn S. Dumke announced unhappily that he was forced to suspend the admission of all new students until the financial picture was clarified. Kerr then ordered a similar hold on all university admissions.

Quite clearly, Governor Reagan had pinched one of California's most sensitive civic nerves. Despite the protests, the Governor is not disposed to back down, and a meeting at week's end with Kerr and some of the regents produced nothing but amicable disagreement. Nonetheless, Reagan's budget faces a careful going-over by Democratic state legislators, who narrowly control both houses, and who have indicated that they intend to fight any major cutbacks in higher education.

* In fact, Connecticut and Idaho are the only other states with tuition-free universities. Typical university tuitions: $348 at Michigan, $345 at Washington, $500 at Vermont. Although tuitionless until now, California does charge "incidental" fees of up to $240.

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