Ten CSU Campuses to Accept Limited Applications for Admission in Spring 2013

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Due to severe budget cuts, SJSU is unable to accept applications for admission from California residents for state funded programs for spring 2013. Alternatives include San Francisco State, CSU East Bay and Sonoma State.

Budget cuts force the reduction of enrollment to match available funding

By Pat Lopes Harris, Media Relations Director

(July 30, 2012) – Severe budget cuts over the past several years and the prospect of an additional $250 million trigger cut will limit new student applications to only 10 California State University campuses for the spring 2013 application period. Applications to those campuses will be limited primarily to students who have earned an Associate Degree for Transfer from a California Community College. For the spring 2013 application period, only Channel Islands, Chico, Fullerton, East Bay, Humboldt, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Francisco and Sonoma will be accepting applications from prospective new students. Due to California budget restrictions, SJSU will meet our enrollment capacity prior to the Spring 2013 application term. Consequently, SJSU will not be accepting any applications for admission from California residents for state funded programs for spring 2013. Graduate and undergraduate international applicants with an F1 or J1 visa type can submit an application for spring 2013 using the international application. U.S. residents who are not California residents can submit an application from August 1 through September 30, 2012. CSU Mentor, Cal State’s admissions website, is always an applicant’s first and best source of information. Read a related news release. View the CSU Budget Central website, the SJSU Budget Central website, or current SJSU tuition and campus fees.

SJSU Hosts Target Summer Pops Featuring Symphony Silicon Valley

It’s almost here: Symphony Silicon Valley’s 2012 free outdoor summer music festival. Sponsored by Target, Applied Materials, City of San Jose and KCBS Radio, the symphony’s fifth annual Target Summer Pops festival brings free professional orchestral music to the community in delightful fully produced lawn concerts on the green at San Jose State University July 28 through Aug. 5. The festival has quickly become a beloved family tradition, with last year’s festival drawing over 16,000 people and giving out 192 gallons of free ice cream! It’s this simple:

  • Enter at South Fourth and San Carlos streets.
  • There is plentiful parking available nearby.
  • Bring a picnic lunch or supper and your beach chair.
  • Relax on the lawn well away from the din of traffic.
  • Enjoy the music of summer!
  • NEW! Ride your bike to the festival. Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition will provide FREE valet bike parking 90 minutes before each concert until 30 minutes after the concert!

Spartans at Work: At NASA Ames, “I’m Pursuing My Childhood Dream”

By Sarah Kyo, Web Communications Specialist

(This summer, SJSU Today hits the road, visiting students and recent grads on the job across the country and around the world. Our Spartans at Work series continues with aerospace engineering graduate Ali Guarneros Luna.)

Where will an SJSU degree take you? How about beyond the Earth’s atmosphere? While Ali Guarneros Luna, ’10, ’12 Aerospace Engineering, has her feet on the ground as a systems engineer for NASA Ames Research Center, she has been involved in projects that have made it to outer space.

Guarneros Luna lead an SJSU student team that worked on the cube satellite, TechEdSat, one of five cube satellites, or cubesats, being transported to the International Space Station. A transfer vehicle containing the cubesats, additional experiments and supplies launched from Japan at 7:06 p.m. PDT July 20. TechEdSat is the first NASA cube satellite that will orbit the earth after being launched from the International Space Station.

Becoming an aerospace engineer was a childhood dream for Guarneros Luna, who grew up in Mexico.

“I read something, I saw something on TV when I was probably five or seven years old, and it just impacted me,” she said.

She earned her current job after interning at NASA Ames during her last year of undergraduate studies, where she made connections with SJSU faculty members who also worked at that research center.

“I was just lucky enough that … San Jose State University gave me the opportunity to pursue the dream that I had when I was growing up,” she said.

California State University Considers Budget Alternatives

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Governor's May Revision Avoids Direct Cuts to CSU

System outlines options dependent on Governor’s tax measure

Media Contacts: Claudia Keith or Mike Uhlenkamp, (562) 951-4800

(July 16, 2012) – With the state budget for 2012-13 now signed, the California State University Board of Trustees will discuss budget options for the system at its regularly scheduled board meeting tomorrow. The final budget relies on the successful passage of the Governor’s tax measure in November. University officials will lay out the difficult budget choices if voters don’t approve the measure and the CSU faces an additional $250 million mid-year “trigger” cut. Options include strategies to reduce payroll costs, a “triggered” mid-year tuition fee increase, enrollment reductions, and other ideas will all be part of the contingencies considered. View the CSU Budget Central website, the SJSU Budget Central website, or current SJSU tuition and campus fees.

“These are all difficult challenges and choices that the CSU must consider to address our severe budget situation,” said Robert Turnage, assistant vice chancellor for budget.

Facing a nearly $16 billion deficit, the state budget adopted by the legislature and the Governor keeps the CSU’s budget essentially flat. However, should the Governor’s tax measure fail, the CSU will face an additional $250 million mid-year “trigger” cut. In that event, the system will have lost almost $1.2 billion or 39% of its state support since 2007-08.

Over the past several months, the CSU has been meeting and holding consultative discussions with its stakeholders to gather input and feedback on budget options. While the board will consider strategies to address the budget problem at its July meeting, it isn’t expected to make final decisions on a contingency budget plan until it meets in September.

Ongoing Budget Deficit
As a result of drastic state budget cuts and increases in mandatory costs such as employee health care premiums, the CSU has a funding gap of approximately $510 million. This is despite increases in tuition fee revenue of $593 million that have only partially filled the hole created by more than $1 billion in state funding reductions.

In addition, the budget just approved has an option for a delayed tuition buy out that appropriates $125 million in next year’s budget, but only if the Governor’s tax measure passes and if the CSU board rolls back the tuition increase already in effect for fall 2012. The CSU had expected to receive $132 million of net revenue from the tuition increase for this fiscal year, and the 23 campuses have already built their budgets and planned course schedules based on this revenue. The system is working to identify a solution to replace the lost revenue for the current fiscal year.

Although the campuses and the Chancellor’s Office have implemented numerous cost reduction actions – including furloughs and a workforce reduction of more than 3,000 employees – a large portion of the funding gap has been covered by one-time resources and deferrals.

“We are at the point where the use of one-time funds to address ongoing budget cuts is not sustainable,” said CSU Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Financial Officer Benjamin Quillian. “It is not possible to continue to patch over budget holes. We need to take actions that reduce our costs going forward. That is the only way we will be able to serve students with the classes and support services that they need.”

Staff will present two alternative strategies to address a potential $250 million mid-year “trigger” cut with both options sharing components including reducing salaries or increasing employees’ share of benefit costs; reducing faculty assigned time and sabbaticals; charging for excess units, and the use of continuing education funds and other one-time resources. One option preserves access by not cutting enrollment while the other relies on larger payroll reductions by maintaining tuition fee levels.

“Trigger on trigger”
Under this option, the board would authorize at its September meeting a contingency mid-year tuition fee increase of $150 per semester or about 5% that would be “triggered” if the CSU faces a $250 million cut if the tax initiative fails. There would be no incremental set aside for financial aid since that would require a larger increase to generate the same net revenue, and would result in a larger burden for students without significant financial aid. The CSU already provides almost $700 million in tuition subsidies for students with the greatest financial need. There would also be no further enrollment reductions under this approach.

Employee pay/benefit reductions
Since 85% of CSU’s budget is personnel related, reductions in employee pay or increases in the amount employees pay for benefits will need to be considered. Options include systemwide reductions in personnel costs that could be achieved through negotiated reductions in employee salaries, or alternatively, through greater cost-sharing of health benefit premiums.

Reduce enrollment/reduce faculty and staff positions
If the CSU’s budget is cut an additional $250 million and no new tuition fee increase is implemented, the CSU would need to reduce 2013-14 enrollment by 6,000 students, and eliminate the associated 750 faculty/staff positions.

Faculty Assigned Time and Sabbaticals
Campuses have reduced assigned time, but further prioritization of non-teaching activities could result in savings of up to $25 million.

Third Level Pricing Structure
All of the new pricing strategies would provide more room for incoming students, help students progress to degree, and ensure that diminishing state resources are used to effectively serve as many students as possible.

Specifics include:

  • Charging for the full cost of any units over 16 per semester
  • Charging a “course repeat” fee for any single class taken by a student more than once
  • Implementing a graduation incentive fee for “super seniors” who have already taken five years worth of academic credit funded by the state
  • Increase tuition supplement for nonresident students by $1,000

One Time Transfer of Continuing Education Reserves
Both approaches include a transfer of approximately $75 million from CSU’s Continuing Education Revenue Fund. This would provide significant relief to the “state side” of the university for 2012-13 but would be one-time and restricted to that fiscal year.

The board will also take action on a resolution to endorse the Governor’s tax measure.

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About the California State University
The California State University is the largest system of senior higher education in the country, with 23 campuses, approximately 427,000 students and 44,000 faculty and staff. The CSU awards about 99,000 degrees annually and since its creation in 1961 has conferred nearly 2.6 million. The CSU is renowned for the quality of its teaching and for the job-ready graduates it produces. The mission of the CSU is to provide high-quality, affordable education to meet the ever changing needs of the people of California. With its commitment to excellence, diversity and innovation, the CSU is the university system that is working for California. Connect with and learn more about the CSU at CSU Social Media. Show how the CSU matters to you and take action.

President Qayoumi Presents Award for STEM Education Model

President Qayoumi Presents Award to STEM Tool Developed by Raytheon

President Qayoumi presents award for STEM tool to Brian K. Fitzgerald, CEO, Business-Higher Education Forum; Maury Cotter, director, Office of Quality Improvement, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and William Kirwan II, chancellor, University System of Maryland.

By Pat Lopes Harris, Media Relations Director

President Mohammad Qayoumi helped present the 2012 Leveraging Excellence Award to the Business-Higher Education Forum’s U.S. STEM Education Model.

Raytheon Company Chairman and CEO Bill Swanson received the honor at BHEF’s summer meeting in Washington, D.C. Raytheon built the model in partnership with BHEF.

The effort allows users to simulate various scenarios to determine whether the scenarios have the potential to increase the number of students choosing to major and graduate in STEM disciplines.

The tool uses census data and standardized test scores to track the flow of students through the K-16 education system and into careers in STEM teaching or STEM industries.

The Business-Higher Education Forum is composed of Fortune 500 CEOs and college and university presidents including Qayoumi who work together to address issues fundamental to our global competitiveness.

The National Consortium for Continuous Improvement in Higher Education administers the Leveraging Excellence Award, which recognizes best practices that have had broad impact within the higher education community.