Comments on: Oakland attorney named to CSU Board of Trustees

By: JohnW

JohnW — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 08:30:23 +0000

Re: #4

There is no question colleges and universities have not done a great job of managing costs. However, the bigger reason for the hefty tuition increases is that the state’s share of funding (relative to tuition, fees and research grants) for higher education has declined dramatically over the past 20 years.

I’m going from memory here, so don’t hold me to the numbers. But I believe the share picked up by the state has declined from about 70% to more like 15% these days. The state spending on higher ed has been crowded out by rapid growth in spending on prisons and Medicaid.

As Mike Huckabee once described his job when governor of Arkansas: “Educate, incarcerate and medicate.” The incarcerate and medicate parts have been eating up greater shares of the budget.

By: moderatevoter

moderatevoter — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 06:20:45 +0000

John W, I meant to write $400,000. As I remember it, the new President of San Diego State is making 400,000. Generally these college Presidents get free housing too, I recall when I was at CSU Chico the President had a stately mansion on campus he lived in. I do think $400,000 is excessive compensation for a state college President, especially in light of the ongoing budget crises. Bear in my there are like 24 state colleges, each has a President drawing down CEO-like pay.Significantly, these raises being given to college Presidents recently happened during a time when state coffers were empty, all up and down state cities, counties and school districts have been forced to make these horrific cuts to vital programs, yet this Charles Reed – the outgoing State College Chancellor – was scheming to get all these paper pushers in Long beach massive raises. Legislators were so fed up they whacked the state colleges even more. Reed, and his cronies in Long Beach, only seem to have one thing on thier minds, which was how can we get our pay, benefits, and perks up high enough so we can buy boats and vacation homes. Problematic is these awful tuition hikes were being absorbed by kid’s who were working at these 9 dollar an hour jobs putting themselves thru college. It’s trickle up economics, the hard earned dollars of these college kids are now trickling up to these spoiled pampered state college paper-pusher administrators, like Charles Reed. Who, by the way, are always retiring because they’ve got these massive pensions now.
I think we need reform at our state colleges, Brown has been prudent as Governor, doing a lot of reformist style cost cutting, and I’d like to see his appointment to the board of trustees – Ms. Eisen – do the same at our state colleges.

By: RR, Senile Columnist

RR, Senile Columnist — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 05:57:28 +0000

Mitt would take the job for a dollar a year.

By: JohnW

JohnW — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 19:53:15 +0000

Just asking a question here. Is $300,000 really so out of line for a college president?

I totally agree about the pension issue.

As for salary, $300k is still very good, even here in the Bay Area. But it is also very common among people in management ranks, high level sales, doctors, lawyers, tech professionals etc. A tugboat captain makes more than $400k.

By: rew

rew — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 06:49:38 +0000

I’d like to see Ms Eisen do something about the bloated CEO-like pay packages being paid to CSU Presidents. Voters continue to be disgusted in these $300,000 salaries being paid to college presidents, which includes gargantuan pensions after they retire. Additionally, during this hideous recession the Chancellor kept granting raises to administrator types who work at the Long Beach CSU headquarters. The Chancellor just thumbed his nose at taxpayers and students, and so did many on the CSU Board of Trustees.
Significantly, as the Chancellor was hiking pay for Long Beach paper pushers and college Presidents he was also raising tuition to pay for these bloated pay packages, which led to many low income students dropping out of the colleges, or other low income students not even applying. Classes have been cut at all the campuses across the board, yet the pay and benefit packages of these big shots at the top continues to go through stratosphere.
In recent years many – including myself – believe the elites in the US – the people at the top, have been letting the average citizen down. Greed – an especially virolent form of greed, seems to be the order of the day with those at the top now. We are finding this on Wall street, in corporate offices, and even in the CSU system. In my mind the last place you ought to finding a culture of greed is in the CSU system, these are public colleges, they were set up to educate kids from moderate and low income families. They were not set up to provide CEO like perks and benefits for the people that run them. I sincerely hope Ms Eisen keeps this in mind when she serves on the board.