HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: UC Berkeley Spends $1 Million To Refurbish Chancellor’s Home; Assistant Claims She Was Fired For Refusing To Lie In IRS Reporting About Time Spent Doing Personal Chores.

Over the past three years, UC Berkeley has spent more than $1 million sprucing up the official home of Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, school records show. …

Estimated total cost for the in-home work: $428,000. Campus officials hasten to add that none of it came out of state or tuition funds. Gift funds were used to pay for all the work done ahead of the chancellor’s arrival, while investment income and other revenue sources paid for the rest.

In addition to all this, the university spent close to $700,000 — 2½ times the original budget — to install a security fence after protesters sprayed graffiti on the house. And every year, it provides the chancellor with a $179,000 budget to maintain University House.

News of this spending comes as the university struggles with a $150 million deficit.

If you need to save money, you cut faculty. Not perks for administrators. Everybody knows that.