UC scrambling to afford big wage gains for academic workers: Grad student cuts loom

Just weeks after the University of California and academic workers heralded historic wage gains in new labor contracts, the question of how to pay for them is roiling campuses as they scramble to identify money, consider cutbacks in graduate student admissions and fear deficits.

The full financial costs of the labor settlements between UC and 48,000 academic workers who help power the system's vaunted teaching and research engine are still being tallied. But preliminary estimates have dealt a "financial shock to the system," said Rosemarie Rae, University of California, Berkeley chief financial officer.

The UC Office of the President estimates the increased costs for salary, benefits and tuition systemwide will be between $500 million and $570 million over the life of the contracts. Campuses have come up with their own calculations: At the University of California, Santa Barbara, for instance, the Academic Senate chair estimated that the cost of pay hikes alone could spiral to more than $53 million over three years at her campus, one of 10 systemwide.