The midnight state budget deadline approaches

To meet the constitutional deadline, the legislature has until midnight tonight to pass a "budget." The Senate version of what is currently under consideration can be found at the link below:

https://sbud.senate.ca.gov/system/files/2026-06/legislatures-version-of-the-budget-summary.pdf

You will note, if you go to that link, that the higher ed proposals deal with the community colleges for the most part, not with UC.

The Assembly version has more detail. See:

https://abgt.assembly.ca.gov/system/files/2026-06/floor-report-of-the-2026-27-budget-june-11-2026.pdf

Below is the summary for UC:

===

University of California

• Provides $254.3 million ongoing General Fund for the fifth and final year of the Governor’s Compact funding of the UC. Also includes $96.3 million for partial funding of the fourth year, as expected based on the 2025 budget agreement.

• Extends the repayment of a one-time 3 percent funding reduction of $129.7 million included in the 2025 budget by one year from 2026-27 until 2027-28.

• Maintains a 2025 Budget Act agreement to defer the 2025-26 compact’s $240.8 million ongoing General Fund to support a 5% base increase until 2027-28. As part of the deferral arrangement, the state would plan to provide UC with one-time back payments in 2026-27 and 2027-28.

• Maintains a 2024-25 Budget Act agreement to defer $31 million ongoing General Fund to continue the 5-year program to replace nonresident students with California students at the Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego campuses until 2027-28.

• Provides $1.5 million General Fund to support the First Star Academy Youth Cohorts at UC campuses, as proposed in the May Revision.

• Includes $9 million one-time to continue the Cal-Bridge program.

• Adds $750,000 one-time for the ENLACE program.

• Provides $3.4 million one-time for the University of California Menopause Centers of Excellence.

• Includes $5 million one-time for the UCLA Center for Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy.

• Adds $3.6 million one-time to expand Prime RX program at UC San Diego.

• Appropriates $1.8 million one-time to UC Berkeley for the ACCESS optometry program.

• Includes $3 million one-time to UC San Diego for a workforce development initiative.

• Adds $6.5 million one-time to UC for the Voting Right’s Program.

• Provides $6.5 million one-time to UCLA for the Ralph J. Bunche Center

===

In essence, various pet programs are listed for additional funding. Various deferrals continue. As noted in prior postings, even if a budget is passed, revisions are possible as the Democratic legislative leaders continue to negotiate with the governor.

Slowly following the roadmap

We noted on this blog that there was a Zoom meeting of the Assembly of the systemwide Academic Senate last Thursday. Yours truly was able to attend only parts of that meeting due to medical issues. However, at around he same time, BOARS released a "roadmap" concerning UC admissions policy.* It proposes to create working groups to study the SAT/testing issue and the A-G requirements. 

There was some controversy at the Assembly over the working group for A-G. It wasn't exactly clear what the concern was but yours truly suspects it had something to do with the recent Ethnic Studies brouhaha. ??? In any event, despite an effort for the Assembly officially to express a view that there was no need for more A-G study, the Assembly did not take that position. So there will be more A-G study,

More concerning was the SAT/testing issue. According to a report in the LA Times,** the number of signatures of UC STEM faculty on the letter pushing for reinstatement of the SAT for incoming STEM majors has grown to over 1,400.

It should be noted that the BOARS roadmap appears to have been prepared before the letter and proposes moving along at the usual Senate deliberative pace. While we have noted the seeming impracticality of having an SAT requirement only for some prospective majors, we suggested a more responsive and rapid effort over the summer - not over another full academic year as the roadmap suggests - to create an interim report that could be discussed at the September Regents meeting. (The Regents are surely aware of the controversy; they read the LA Times.) Although a concern was expressed that waiting a year for a report pushes back actually implementing something at least a year, that seems to be the likely scenario at this point.

==

*https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/uc-academic-senate-announces-plan-review-admissions-policies; https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/committees/boars/documents/uc-academic-senate-boars-roadmap-executive-summary-06-11-2026.pdf; https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/committees/boars/documents/uc-academic-senate-boars-roadmap-06-05-2026.pdf; https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/committees/boars/documents/academic-senate-chair-to-faculty-re-boars-roadmap-06-11-2026.pdf.

**https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-06-11/uc-sat-act-test-requirement-admissions-reconsider.

Straws in the Wind - Part 373

From Insider Higher Ed: Former Virginia Tech rector John Rocovich sued Gov. Abigail Spanberger this week, as well as the university and the Board of Visitors, over his removal, and he’s seeking immediate reinstatement to his seat, according to Cardinal News. Spanberger removed Rocovich from the board late last month, accusing him of ethical violations. But to date, the Democratic governor has not specified her exact reasons for removing Rocovich, a major GOP donor who was appointed by her Republican predecessor, Glenn Youngkin.

She’s already appointed a replacement, and Rocovich did not attend the last board meeting... The legal battle between Spanberger and Rocovich is happening amid an effort by the governor to reshape Virginia boards after Youngkin appointed numerous conservative donors and activists. Rocovich was supposed to oversee a closely watched presidential search...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/06/12/former-virginia-tech-rector-sues-over-removal.

Joining

From the Daily Cal: ...Endorsing their STEM colleagues’ petition, more than 120 humanities and social science professors across the UC system released an open letter Thursday urging the university to go beyond the STEM letter call by including the SAT and ACT’s verbal reasoning requirement as well. Stefano DellaVigna, who is the chair of UC Berkeley’s economics department and who signed the humanities letter, said in an email some student difficulties are most likely a result of “Covid shock,” but SAT and ACT scores are better able to predict college success compared to high school grades.

...The humanities letter marks an escalation of a faculty-led campaign to reverse the 2020 UC Board of Regents decision to remove all standardized testing requirements from freshman admissions. While the STEM letter focuses on declining math skills, the humanities letter argues the alleged harms of test-blind admissions extend across disciplines. “Without foundational literacy, students face difficulties across university disciplines,” the letter states. “Eliminating the metrics that diagnose these preparation gaps imposed significant barriers for underprepared students and their instructors alike.”

The letter additionally challenges that standardized testing requirements are inequitable, arguing that “no admissions criterion is uncorrelated with social background,” and asserts that extracurricular activities and essay writing style are strongly associated with social class...

Mina Aganagic, math and physics professor at UC Berkeley, wrote in an email that the timeline in BOARS’ roadmap does not allow enough time for standardized testing requirements to be reinstated by the 2027 admissions cycle, which is the timing the open letter requested. Aganagic’s signature is first on the STEM petition.

“The BOARs roadmap would delay the process by a year at least,” Aganagic said in the email. “This means a whole extra generation of ten’s of thousands of freshmen, and hundreds of thousands of applicants, would be admitted by a nearly blinded, AI and grade inflation randomized admissions process.”

Aganagic also questioned the proposed roadmap, claiming that the UC system will redo research it has already conducted and arguing that the changes to the SAT, including becoming digital, “are unlikely to affect earlier findings.” ...

Full story at https://www.dailycal.org/news/uc/joining-stem-faculty-uc-humanities-faculty-endorse-use-of-standardized-tests-in-admissions-as-academic/article_a90605be-44b9-4d92-9ada-e165b20588bf.html.

As we have noted in a separate post today, the BOARS "roadmap" approach - which was developed before the current petitions - seems unresponsive to the concerns being expressed. There are better approaches such as an expedited study over the summer, followed by Regents discussion at the September meetings. Unfortunately, being responsive or not seems to be in the discretion of the chair of the Academic Council who prefers "not."

Forecasting

Cohen at Center; Nickelsburg to her right.

---

From the State Controller: https://www.sco.ca.gov/eo_pressrel_27525.html

Building on her release of California’s timely audited financial statements ahead of major budget decisions, California State Controller Malia M. Cohen today announced the formation of her Council of Economic Advisors to provide evidence-based insights, and practical and actionable policy recommendations on crosscutting issues that affect the state’s fiscal condition.

 

Chaired by Dr. Jerry Nickelsburg, UCLA Anderson Forecast Faculty Director Emeritus, the Controller’s Council of Economic Advisors includes six experts who will advise the Controller on global, national, state and local fiscal concerns. Together, the panel will assess California’s economic performance throughout its regions and industries and recommend data-driven policy solutions to address major statewide challenges including in affordability, tax policy, healthcare, education, small business development, workforce development and equitable growth.

 

“While we continue to reimagine financial transparency in order to give Californians a clearer understanding of the state’s financial condition, we need to call upon expert talent that has its fingers on the pulse of what is driving global, national, statewide and regional markets, and how it affects our state’s competitiveness as the world’s fourth largest economy,” said Controller Cohen. “The members of this Council of Economic Advisors have graciously agreed to share their objective and independent economic analysis and recommendations on issues that significantly affect Californians, our diverse regions, and our state’s revenues today and in the future. I wholeheartedly thank them for agreeing to serve in this important role.”

 

By combining rigorous economic expertise with real-time fiscal data – including daily and monthly cash receipts and expenditure data from the State Controller’s Office – the council will serve as a trusted resource for the State Controller in championing policies that safeguard California’s fiscal health and promote statewide economic opportunity.

 

“On behalf of this Council of Economic Advisors, we are honored to individually and collectively provide Controller Cohen and her office with economic insights, evidence, and related recommendations that may have a critical impact on California, it’s residents and the state’s limited financial resources,” said Dr. Nickelsburg...

Cutting Down

Apparently, it's not just the STEM fields that are finding incoming students unprepared. From the Daily Cal:

Faculty in the humanities are grappling with a changing educational landscape as debates arise regarding student preparation and nationwide headlines question students’ abilities to read longer texts. Some faculty across the humanities report cutting down the amount of reading they assign to students, though others have found that students are keeping up with a standard workload the same way they would have years ago. Carlos Noreña, a UC Berkeley history professor specializing in ancient history,said the amount of reading he could comfortably assign while expecting students to read a “substantial” portion of it has dropped over the past 20 years at UC Berkeley. “We are now reaching a crisis point where if the number (of pages) goes down further, it’s unclear to me whether my discipline of history can really be taught,” Noreña said. 

English professor Grace Lavery, said while she noticed some students struggling with denser Charles Dickens novels, these issues weren’t new or necessarily problematic. “The reason is that the Dickens novels I teach are long and difficult,” Lavery said. “I imagine that if I had been teaching these novels in the same way back in the 1950s, I would have had exactly the same problems.” ...

...Some faculty said they are increasingly excerpting longer works rather than having students read full books. Margaret Byrne Chair in American History Mark Brilliant said the earliest version of the History of California and the American West course he taught required seven full books, while his most recent iteration exclusively consisted of excerpts... Brilliant also noted that the number of books and pages he assigned have shrunk over the 22 years that he has taught at UC Berkeley.

Fellow history professor Trevor Jackson said... his students avoid using AI to write, but sometimes ask it to summarize texts while reading. “I found that very upsetting, because I’ve read the AI summary of my own book, and it’s all wrong,” Jackson said. “Even a good summary is still not grappling with the text.” 

Full story at https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/academics/reaching-a-crisis-point-uc-berkeley-humanities-professors-lower-expectations-for-assigned-readings/article_a1e6e366-9c0b-48a2-b662-5191a7120bf4.html.

Straws in the Wind - Part 371

From Inside Higher Ed: A new report* on the state of humanities scholarship made waves in higher ed circles when it was released Friday, and has since drawn criticism from professors across the humanities. Commissioned by Vanderbilt University chancellor Daniel Diermeier and Washington University in St. Louis chancellor Andrew Martin, the “State of Scholarship” report finds fault with disciplines including anthropology, philosophy and history—not for their content but for the quality of their scholarship, which the report’s authors argue is too often driven by political ideology rather than the pursuit of truth and knowledge... 

Critiques of the report are broad and varied. National Association of Scholars research director David Randall said the authors rehash decades-old arguments against relativism and don’t go far enough in their recommendations to reform the humanities. “If they’re actually serious about academic reform, they will act rather than sponsor more faculty gab-fests,” he wrote of Diermeier and Martin. Pennsylvania State University communications professor Bradford Vivian wrote on Bluesky that “a better title for the Vanderbilt report on the humanities would be [William F. Buckley Jr.’s] ‘God and Man at Yale Part II.’” ...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty/research/2026/06/10/professors-say-vanderbilt-report-misrepresents-their-work.

===

*https://cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-wpfsx/wp-content/uploads/sites/51/2026/06/State-of-Scholarship_Report_Final.pdf.