How Best To Coordinate California Higher Education: Comments On The Governor's Proposed Reforms

California government is now considering major reforms in the organization of higher education, specifically dismantling the state’s independent planning and coordinating agency, the California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC), and placing it and the Student Aid Commission under a new position in the governor’s office, possibly a Secretary of Higher Education. This recommendation is the result of Governor Schwarzenegger’s establishment of the California Performance Review Commission, in February of 2004, to investigate possible reorganization and other reforms for reducing spending and creating greater efficiencies in state government. Some fourteen teams, divided into seven "functional" areas (e.g., education) and seven cross-cutting areas (e.g., procurement and information technology), developed recommendations for consideration by the governor’s office. This paper comments on the governor’s proposal and more generally on the appropriate structure for coordinating California’s massive higher education system.