How UCLA Is Funded ...
And Why It Matters to All of Us
And Why It Matters to All of Us
Frequently Asked Questions
As a public university, doesn’t the state of California pick up most of the tab for UCLA?
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No. There are several ways to determine what percentage of UCLA’s total budget comes from the state, since some of that money isn’t part of the state’s general fund allocation and comes from other programs. But by any measure, the amount of state support UCLA receives has been declining steadily for decades.
According to the UCLA Annual Financial Report, state funding accounted for 37% of the university’s $458 million in revenues supporting core activities in fiscal year 1978-1979, but fell to only 16% on revenues of $4 billion in 2007-2008. Some estimates, in fact, put that figure as low as 13%.
Part of the percentage decline is because of our success in growing other funding sources, especially research and hospital revenue, which has allowed us to leverage the state investment into something many times larger. But while we are doing more with less, declining state support is a huge lost opportunity for the people of California.
Why is state funding so important?
The funds the university receives from the state have to be spent on the “vital core” of basic operations such as faculty salaries, operating the university’s various departments, the university police, the payroll office, and so on. But state money cannot be used for athletics, the Medical Center, the residence halls and student programs. And unlike some private universities, we don’t have massive endowments to make up for state money shortfalls.
