Back in January 2017, the University of California system of schools approved their first in-state tuition hike in six years. And while one might hope that the extra millions of dollars raised as a result of those hikes would go toward a better education for students, in reality, a large chuck will go to fund the exorbitant pensions of retired teachers.
As the Los Angeles Times recently pointed out, there are over 5,400 retirees in the UC system drawing over $100,000 per year, a 60% surge since 2012. Moreover, there are nearly 3 dozen former teachers drawing over $300,000 per year.
Last year, more than 5,400 UC retirees received pensions over $100,000. Someone without a pension would need savings between $2 million and $3 million to guarantee a similar income in retirement.
The number of UC retirees collecting six-figure pensions has increased 60% since 2012, a Times analysis of university data shows. Nearly three dozen received pensions in excess of $300,000 last year, four times as many as in 2012. Among those joining the top echelon was former UC President Mark Yudof, who worked at the university for only seven years — including one year on paid sabbatical and another in which he taught one class per semester.
The average UC pension for people who retired after 30 years is $88,000, the data show.
http://w3.cdn.anvato.net/player/prod/v3/anvload.html
In fact, the LA Times even provided this helpful chart detailing which former professors are sticking it to current students, and their parents, the most....apparently the prize goes to former UC President Mark Yudof who collects $357,000 per year after working for only 7 years in the university system.
Meanwhile, if just reviewing the list above isn't enough to make you violently ill, consider how Yudof managed to secure his $357,000 in annual payments. To summarize, he negotiated a sweetheart deal that capped his pension payout after 7 years, he worked 5 of those years, took a "sabbatical year" for "health reasons" in year 6, and taught 1 class a semester in year 7 before retiring with a pension worth millions.
The top 10 pension recipients in 2016 include nine scholars and scientists who spent decades at the university: doctors who taught at the medical schools and treated patients at the teaching hospitals, a Nobel Prize-winning cancer researcher and a physicist who oversaw America’s nuclear weapons stockpile.
The exception is Yudof, who receives a $357,000 pension after working only seven years.
Under the standard formula — 2.5% of the highest salary times the number of years worked — Yudof’s pension would be just over $45,000 per year, according to data provided by the university.
But Yudof negotiated a separate, more lucrative retirement deal for himself when he left his job as chancellor of the University of Texas to become UC president in 2008.
“That’s the way it works in the real world,” Yudof said in a recent interview with The Times.
The deal guaranteed him a $30,000 pension if he lasted a year. Two years would get him $60,000. It went up in similar increments until the seventh year, when it topped out at $350,000.
Yudof stepped down as president after five years, citing health reasons. Under the terms of his deal, his pension would have been $230,000. But he didn’t immediately leave the university payroll.
First, he collected his $546,000 president’s salary during a paid “sabbatical year” offered to former senior administrators so they can prepare to go back to teaching. The next year he continued to collect his salary while teaching one class per semester, bringing his tenure to seven years and securing the maximum $350,000 pension.
In 2016 he got the standard 2% cost-of-living raise, resulting in his $357,000 pension.
It's almost as if he planned to scam the system from the moment he signed his contract...
Of course, with a $15 billion funding gap, the UC's pension ponzi is only getting started with their plans to jam their soaring pension costs down the throats of students and their parents...
“I think this year’s higher tuition is just the beginning of bailouts by students and their parents,” said Lawrence McQuillan, author of California Dreaming: Lessons on How to Resolve America’s Public Pension Crisis. “The students had nothing to do with creating this, but they are going to be the piggy bank to solve the problem in the long term.”
...but it's ok because the kids will just take out more student loans which will all be socialized at some point anyway.