BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
SB 42 (Liu) - Postsecondary education: California Commission on
Higher Education Performance and Accountability.
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|Version: April 7, 2015 |Policy Vote: ED. 8 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: May 11, 2015 |Consultant: Jillian Kissee |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: This bill reestablishes the California Commission on
Higher Education Performance and Accountability (CCHEPA), as a
successor agency to the former California Postsecondary
Education Commission (CPEC), modifies the make-up of the prior
commission, reduces and clarifies the Commission's functions and
responsibilities, and deletes a number of obsolete reporting
requirements.
Fiscal
Impact:
This bill results in estimated costs in the low millions
General Fund. (see staff comments)
Additional significant administrative costs could be incurred
for restoration of a database and related information as well
as conducting required studies included in this bill. CSU
indicates minor ongoing costs.
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Background: Existing law establishes the CPEC to be responsible for
coordinating public, independent, and private postsecondary
education in California and providing independent policy
analysis and recommendations to the Legislature and the Governor
on postsecondary education issues.
Existing law also requires the CPEC to: (1) act as a
clearinghouse for postsecondary education information and to
serve as a primary source of information for the Legislature,
Governor, and other agencies and, (2) develop and maintain a
comprehensive database that supports longitudinal studies of
individual students as they progressed through the state's
postsecondary educational institutions through the use of a
unique student identifier. Additionally, the CPEC was to
provide each of the educational segments access to the data made
available to the CPEC for purposes of the database in order to
support statewide, segmental and individual campus educational
research needs. (Education Code § 66900 et. seq.)
In 2011, Governor Brown vetoed CPEC funding of about $2 million
General Fund, resulting in its closure in November 2011.
Although the Governor eliminated all General Fund support for
CPEC, its statutory authority remains intact.
Proposed Law: This bill reestablishes the California Commission
on Higher Education Performance and Accountability (CCHEPA), as
a successor agency to the former California Postsecondary
Education Commission (CPEC), modifies the make-up of the prior
commission, reduces and clarifies the Commission's functions and
responsibilities, and deletes a number of obsolete reporting
requirements.
Specifically, this bill:
Modifies the make-up of the prior commission. It
provides for 17 members of the general public and
eliminates representation from different segments and
requires that the CCHEPA be a representative of civic,
business, and public school leaders, and that members serve
staggered six year terms.
Modifies the make-up of the advisory committee to the
CCHEPA to include one student representative enrolled
SB 42 (Liu) Page 2 of
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during their time of service and an executive officer from
among the independent California colleges and universities,
as specified.
This bill reduces and clarifies the CCHEPA's functions and
responsibilities as follows:
A. Deletes a number of functions previously assigned to the
CPEC.
B. Requires that it articulate and monitor state
performance objectives for higher education.
C. Requires that it advise the Legislature and the Governor
regarding the need for, and location of, new institutions
and campuses of public higher education as well as review
of proposals by the public segments for new programs, as
specified.
D. Requires that it act as a clearinghouse for
postsecondary education information and as a primary source
of information for the Legislature, the Governor, and other
agencies.
E. Requires that it develop and maintain a comprehensive
database that ensures data compatibility, supports
longitudinal studies, is compatible with K-12 data systems,
provides internet access to data for the sectors of higher
education in order to support statewide, segmental and
individual campus educational research needs.
F. Requires that it review all proposals for changes in
eligibility pools for admission to public institutions and
segments of postsecondary education and that it
periodically conduct eligibility studies.
G. Requires, through its use of information and its
analytic capacity, that it inform the identification and
periodic revision of state goals and priorities for higher
education, in a manner that is consistent with the goals of
higher education and performance metrics as established in
statute. In addition, this bill requires that it evaluate
both statewide and institutional performance in relation to
these goals and priorities.
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H. Requires that it manage data systems and maintain
programmatic, policy, and fiscal expertise to receive and
aggregate information reported by the institutions of
higher education in this state.
Related
Legislation:1. AB 1348 (John A. Pérez, 2014) would have established the
California Higher Education Authority, its governing board and
its responsibilities, as specified, phased-in over a three-year
period. AB 1348 was held in the Senate Appropriations
Committee.
AB 2190 (John A. Pérez, 2012) would have established a new state
oversight and coordinating body for higher education. AB 2190
was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
SB 1138 (Liu, 2011-12) would have established a central data
management system for the higher education segments. SB 1138
was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Staff
Comments: This bill establishes a successor agency to the
former CPEC.
The reestablishment of a higher education coordinating agency is
likely to result in annual costs in the low millions, based upon
the historical funding level of CPEC ($2 million General Fund
per year). Though many functions of the former CPEC are
eliminated in this bill, its core coordinating, planning,
analyzing, advising and reporting functions remain.
Additional one-time funding of several hundreds of thousands may
be needed to reconstruct missing data and reestablish the
database described in the bill since the CPEC was eliminated.
This bill requires CCHEPA to recommence conducting eligibility
studies, as the CPEC did. These studies examine the extent to
which UC and CSU draw enrollment from their eligibility pools as
established in the Master Plan for Higher Education. UC is
supposed to draw its incoming freshman class from the top 12.5
percent (one-eighth) of public high school graduates. CSU is
supposed to draw its applicant pool from the top 33 percent
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(one-third) of public high school graduates. Each study is
estimated to incur one-time costs of up to $2 million. UC
estimates the cost for its participation in each study to be
about $500,000 and CSU to be about $175,000.
In addition, CSU indicates ongoing staffing costs of $60,000 to
respond to data requests of the new entity. UC indicates that
its ongoing costs would be absorbable.
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