The Joint Budget Committee met Monday and then again this morning. And … there’s modest good news here. The actions that affect us include the restoration of a cut that we’d taken during the special session with a net positive impact to the CSU System of $2.2M. The JBC also recommended caps on resident tuition increases at 3.5% and non-resident at 5% for both undergraduate, graduate and professional rates. These are also close to what we’ve been modelling, but the campus enrollment folks will need to analyze market conditions before we recommend anything to the Board there.

Bottom-line up front for those of you who know how long these emails can be: the state has yet to set the higher education budget for FY27, and they don’t set our tuition limits until they’ve completed the budget.  There remains substantial uncertainty around the entire state budget, and higher ed, sadly, is often one of the most prominent balancing factors when our elected officials find themselves in a budget bind. So … we find ourselves running up against routine budget planning deadlines within our campuses without the information we need to finalize our decisions.

In February, CSU University Distinguished Professor Ed Barbier became the first economist ever to receive the Planet Earth Award from the Alliance of World Scientists – a coalition of 27,000 scientists worldwide who champion science as a basis for addressing global environmental challenges.