What Makes the CSU’s Self-Support Capacity Self-Supporting?

The self-support capacity is a funding strategy that uses no CSU General Fund dollars—in other words, no state funding. Each self-support offering must pay for itself through the revenue it generates. That revenue must cover the reimbursement of any state-funded units on campus that provide services to that campus’s self-support offerings; all operating costs for the program services; and other administration costs, including an overhead charge (called a pro rata share) from the CSU Chancellor’s Office assessed against the total self-support revenue of each campus each year.

Since self-support programs must pay all of their own costs, they have to charge higher tuitions than state-funded programs. Given that responsibility, one might expect CSU self-support credit programs to charge about twice as much as state-funded programs. Yet they currently average only about 50% higher. At the same time, CSU self-support programs are generally priced significantly below those of the major private and for-profit providers in California.

CSU’s self-support programs thus have a dual advantage: not only can they respond to the educational needs that are the focus of private and for-profit institutions, but they also offer a more affordable option – one that reflects the academic quality and scope of the CSU.

Self-support programs are governed by most of a campus’s financial and major administrative policies and practices. These include but are not limited to the following:

• Instructional pay for credit courses, degree programs, and credit certificate programs must comply with CSU/CFA negotiated pay schedules and scales.
• Academic and financial records – all credit program and course information and student records, instructional pay records, budget and financial records, revenue and expenses, and the like – are totally accessible in the CSU’s PeopleSoft system, as with any state-funded programs.
• Full-time staff in campus self-support units are CSU employees and members of their respective CSU staff unions; their pay, benefits, and negotiated working rules are the same as those for other CSU staff in state-supported colleges and administrative units.

Budgeting and pricing self-support programs: Budgets for each program and service are based on the cost of providing that program or service. These costs include instruction, administration, marketing, delivery mode (online production and technical support and/or off-site facilities rental, faculty travel costs, etc.), academic oversight and administration for the academic department/college, and campus and Chancellor’s Office overhead.