Expenditures represent values, and in the case of UCSD they represent an evident shift from academic to administrative values.
The result of this shift has been a deterioration of UCSD’s ability to deliver on its core academic and public missions.
The increases in staff expenditures are uneven and often prioritize investments not directly associated with the core academic functions of the University.
Growth in student enrollment has not been matched by adequate faculty hiring.
While we celebrate the Faculty Growth Plan, the results thus far have lagged behind student growth and have been inadequate to support the pedagogical mission.
*LRE: Includes Professorial, Acting, and Lecturers with Security of Employment.
At the same time permanent faculty and lecturer positions seem to have become less central to instruction, as temporary positions outpace their growth.
*Temporary Positions include: Faculty-Clinical, In-Residence, Adjuncts, Visiting, as well as Non-Senate Lecturers and Instructional Assistants.
Another issue is the rise of academic integrity problems, which have deleterious effects on faculty (senate and non-senate), and graduate TAs’ time, effort, and morale.
Concerning graduate programs, the Administration is pushing for the expansion of Masters programs, which have been identified as additional “institutional revenues to sustain investments in the education and research enterprise” as indicated in the Strategic Academic Program Development.
The Administration projects Masters enrollments to overtake PhD enrollments within the next 4 years.
PhD enrollments are now projected to be flat from 2020-21 to 2022-23 and only increase very modestly in 2023-24. In the meantime, Masters enrollments are expected to grow by 33%.
In the context of growing undergraduate enrollments, it is unclear how these changes will affect TA capacity, quality, working conditions, and the ability of UCSD to attract high quality PhD candidates in the future.
Despite the unprecedented growth in student enrollments, it is arguable whether UCSD has become more accessible to California residents, particularly first-generation and low-income students.
As enrollments have expanded, UCSD now serves proportionately fewer California residents (–12.3%), first- generation students (–10%) and Pell Grant recipients (–8%) than it served in 2012-13.
The number of undergraduate California residents between 2012-2019 has grown by 3,917, while non-California residents grew by 4,201 (3,307 international, 894 non-international) over the same period.