UC President Janet Napolitano is locked is a battle with California Gov. Jerry Brown and the state legislature over restoring funding to the University cut during the recession. In an interview with NAM Editor Peter Schurmann, Napolitano says the stakes are much higher than a budget tussle. They go to the heart of what role California and the nation sees for public higher education.
I think in California we have a separate dream: The California dream. We have the opportunity to be different than the rest of the nation. And I think we pivot that difference off the fact that we have these great universities, and great state schools and great community colleges. But they can’t be great in name only. It takes substance under that. I think for a long time now we’ve been hiding behind reputation as opposed to what really matters, which is public support.
California is really the engine for the United States, and in some respects for the world. And the University of California is a big engine for the state. The demographics of California are changing … 45 percent of [UC] students are now first generation [immigrants]; 30 percent are from historically underrepresented groups; we have more people receiving financial aid at four of our campuses than the whole Ivy League combined.
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