In connection with the next to previous post about the sources of UCI employees, we now examine changes which have occurred in UC Irvine’s funding, especially the reduction in the percentage of funding by the State of California, and the increase in tuition and fees paid by students. In particular we look at the graphs in the Statistical Portrait of UC Irvine for the 2011-2012 Academic year.
We note that State Government support has declined from a high of 27% in 1999 to 12% of UC Irvine funding in 2011, which is a reduction in percentage by more than half. In fact, state funding is now down to an eighth of total funding. This is another argument that the University is not overloaded with Faculty and Staff which are state funded to provide its many benefits to students and the economy of the state.
Tuition and Fees, on the other hand, now provide 17% of UCI’s funding, which not only exceeds state funding of 12%, but is about 40% greater than state funding. Tuition and Fees has grown from a low of 9% in 2001 to almost double that in 2012.
Federal Government support has fluctuated mildly, but is at about 13% now, and even that exceeds state funding. Rather than look at this as a further taxpayer burden, we should consider it a way for California to regain the federal taxes paid by Californians, since we never fully recoup our share of it. Since the federal grants are for research, they fund the advanced training of our state’s students and increase their lifetime earnings, they show that our faculty is of the highest quality and working on valuable research, they boost the local economy, and they seed innovative companies fed by that research and the advanced graduates that we produce.
Sales and services of the UCI Medical Center as a teaching hospital is the leading support at 34%, which argues against reducing either its Faculty or Staff.
Sales and services of educational activities is at 9%.
The actual value of these segments of UCI funding is shown in the cumulative graph below. It shows that UC Irvine has now grown to where it contributes over $2.1 billion to the local population and economy.
