Berdahl details issues facing campus in AAU discussion
Chancellor will be president of the higher education organization in 2002

By Diane Ainsworth, Public Affairs

24 Jan 2001 | Addressing an informal gathering of the Association of American Universities in Tucson, Az., last week, Chancellor Robert Berdahl, the organization's incoming president in 2002, highlighted the challenges that Berkeley will face in accommodating a surge of new students and a growing demand for access in the years ahead.

Demographic changes in California, as well as in Arizona, Texas and parts of the Southwest, are putting a tremendous stress on the University of California system, he told an audience of higher education representatives. Currently there are 160,000 students enrolled in the nine campuses, with about 60,000 additional students - or the total enrollments of Berkeley and UCLA combined - expected to enter UC in the next decade.

At the same time that growth is occurring, the erosion of affirmative action has spawned a great deal of concern about access to the university.

"The pressures are there, particularly at Berkeley, UCLA and increasingly at UC San Diego, so that access becomes a critical issue," Berdahl said. "We admit only one out of every four state applicants and only one out of every 10 out-of-state applicants, and those statistics are going to go down over the next decade."

That presents a daunting situation for Berkeley, in terms of its alumni support and the political base from which it operates.

"Access is also a question of price, and this is an issue that both public and private institutions face," Berdahl said.

According to statistics in a recent journal of higher education, the consumer price index went up 27 percent during the 1990s, while the median family income rose by 38 percent. Similarly, private university tuition during the same decade went up 57 percent and public university tuition jumped 79 percent.

"There is a very strong sense from those attending our universities that the cost is outstripping family income substantially," he said.

Although Berkeley's annual tuition has gone down some in recent years, the economic outlook in the 1990s called into the question the benefits of a university education.

A shift has occurred in the demand for student financial aid, from need-based to merit-based demand, Berdahl pointed out.

"Public institutions have become more dependent on private support and private scholarships, so donors are more interested in granting merit-based scholarships and much less inclined to give need-based scholarships," he said. "A consequence of that is a growing dependence on student loans."

More recently, the dismantling of affirmative action in California, Washington, DC and Texas compounds the problems of equal access, which is likely to be addressed by the Supreme Court in the next four years to standardize the framework for equal access across the country.

"This situation has created a tremendously difficult political environment for us because the (California) legislature is increasingly Hispanic - over 30 percent of the state population is Hispanic - but we have only about 10 percent Hispanic students within the nine campuses," Berdahl said.

The aftermath of affirmative action and its implications for the recruitment of minority and women faculty, staff and students is one of Chancellor Berdahl's top initiatives and will be addressed at a daylong, systemwide conference to be held Jan. 25 on the Clark Kerr campus.

The AAU, founded in 1900 to advance the international standing of U.S. research universities, today focuses on issues that are important to research-intensive universities, such as funding for research, research policy issues, and graduate and undergraduate education.

Related links:
Chancellor's home page
AAU home page