COLLEGES — NOT AS BROKE AS CLAIMED?

Hearing that the University of California system had $2.5 billion in “unrestricted net assets” on hand in 2010 could make anyone question the necessity of the 32 percent tuition hike that has been proposed, or the 11 to 26 furlough days that more than 100,000 employees were forced to take in 2009.

Similar skepticism has been expressed in two other states in the last month, as different groups suggested that state universities were, in their view, hoarding funds while simultaneously demanding more money from students, denying pay increases to faculty and staff members, and fighting against cuts in state funding. In Michigan it was a faculty union in the middle of contract negotiations. In Ohio it was the state senate’s finance committee chairman. The problem with the claim, administrators say, is that unrestricted net assets are not just piles of cash lying around to be used for whatever they want. The accounting term, which they admit is confusing, refers to any money that doesn’t have some specific restriction placed on it by a donor. That includes a whole host of different funds, most of which have been designated for some purpose, they say.

The term could soon prove to be a headache for more state university administrators as lawmakers scour financial statements for any penny they can find to plug state budgets, and groups like students and faculty members are asked to share the sacrifice of budget cuts through tuition increases, cuts to services, pay freezes, and layoffs.

Read the whole thing. I think university financial statements will be scoured in ways they never have before, which could be awkward, but overall will probably be a good thing.

Plus this: “Everybody’s saying ‘Don’t accumulate assets, pay me!'” A metaphor for our times.