Robert J. Birgeneau, Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, who made almost $450,000 in salary last year, plus very healthy benefits, is concerned that California is running out of money to support him and his campus. He thinks the federal government should step in to fund "research universities" like his own, to spare them the awkward task of cutting spending. Taking to the pages of the Washington Post, he and a collaborator wrote:

... the federal government should create a hybrid model in which a limited number of our great public research and teaching universities receive basic operating support from the federal government and their respective state governments.

Other countries are aware that universities play major roles in economic development, said UC President Mark Yudof, who is writing his own proposal for a national higher-education strategy. States nationwide are cutting education budgets, he said.

"It's a national problem, and we need a national solution," Yudof said. "It's time we had a national discussion."