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Today, a panel of the University of California Regents—the ten-university system's governing body—approved a proposal to increase undergraduate "fees" (UC's word for tuition) by 32 percent over the coming year. Should the full board of Regents consent to the increase tomorrow, students will see a fee increase of more than $2,500 by fall 2010.
Needless to say, this is a huge leap. (By comparison, when I was an undergraduate a little more than a decade ago, tuition at my (non-UC) school increased by 2-4% a year.) Coming on top of all the cuts being made to education and to supporting units at the UC, the increase is brutal.
The university community isn't taking this news sitting down--unless you count sit-ins. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports,
Fourteen protesters were arrested at UCLA when they disrupted the meeting and refused to leave. Protesters then stopped the meeting several times, shouting "Whose university? Our university!" and chanting "We Shall Overcome." Hundreds of students and staff members also gathered at Berkeley and UCLA to begin a three-day protest of the tuition increases and faculty and staff furloughs.
University leaders have argued that the fee increases are necessary to compensate for severe cuts in state support. Mark G. Yudof, the system's president, said three out of four students would be shielded from the effects of the tuition increase by additional financial aid.
What Yudof is really saying—despite assurances elsewhere that the university system will raise grants to subsidize students who demonstrate financial need—is that students who can't afford to pay tuition up front will now have the privilege of taking out even more loans. College has become so expensive that paying back such loans--particularly if a student goes on to grad school--can become a decades-long commitment. (Me, I'm paying off my UC graduate education on a 20-year plan. It's like the mortgage I can't afford because I work at the University of California and live in a UC town.)
Jenna Benty explains the impacts the budget cuts already have had on financial aid. She focuses in particular on a program that was recently cut from UC Irvine, Student Academic Advancement Services, "which helped support low-income, first generation or disabled students." Benty continues:
Ironically, the program SAAS was recently eliminated due to budget cuts, considering these are the students that are largely affected by the budget cuts and tuition increases. When talking to past SAAS students and now ex-coworkers, Deborah was shocked to find “the students were rationing their food in order to fight the termination and tuition increase just so they could have the opportunity to study abroad.”
Low-income students have now taken the budget problems from both ends, not only will they have to pay a higher tuition; important programs that assisted them in financial aid are being cut. Former SAAS student Leandra Ordorica states “SAAS has helped me find resources to be able to pay for UCI. Every time I applied for a scholarship, there was always someone there to write me a letter of recommendation.” These small amenities make the largest impact on the low-income students where finances are constantly a concern. Not only did the SAAS program assist in finding low-income students scholarships, “each counselor sat down personally with a student to see what their specific needs and goals were. After assessing each individuals students ambitions, they would personally find a type of aid that fit their specific needs,” according to Deborah Lee.
The office of the student Regent (an undergraduate who serves on the UC board) liveblogged today's Regents panel vote. From the first post on the event:
9:35AM – [UC systemwide president] Mark Yudof is trying give his board report, but the crowd keeps interruppting and booing him. the chant is “take a stand.” yudof: “regents have to act. in the end of the day, it’s your job to blaance the budget. the budget on the table is the only budget out there that will balance the budget.” Yudof ends his speech early – asks the people that are distrubing the meeting to leave or be removed form the room. police have just entered the room and are waiting for the protesters to remove themselves. students please be safe!
These tuition increases are coming at a time when the UC campuses are actually reducing the number of courses they're offering, and when the quality of education at the university is at serious risk of deterioration. UC is firing lecturers (contingent laborers, unlike tenured faculty) in droves, and the professoriate is loath to pick up
