Despite angry protests from students that led to 16 arrests at UCLA, California's two public universities took actions Wednesday to charge higher fees for education in the fall.
The trustees of the Cal State University system voted to raise annual undergraduate student fees 10%, or $276. A key committee of the University of California regents approved a 7.4%, or $490, raise per year for undergraduates that is expected to be endorsed by the full Board of Regents today.
The actions would bring average statewide undergraduate costs to nearly $3,800 at Cal State and to more than $8,000 at UC, not including housing, books and other expenses, which can total $12,000 to $16,000. Graduate students will face even higher increases.
"This is one of the most painful things we do. None of us wants to raise fees," UC President Robert C. Dynes said at the regents meeting at UCLA. "We're between a rock and a hard place. The state doesn't support us the way they should support us."
University leaders said the fee hikes were necessary, even though a revised state budget proposal released by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday restored about $196 million to the two systems. Officials said the state budget gap was causing enormous funding shortfalls at the 23 Cal State campuses, which enroll about 450,000 students, and the 10 UC campuses, with about 220,000 students.
Officials said that at least a third of the fee increases would be devoted to extra financial aid for needy students and that Cal State fees remained well below the average of comparable schools in other states. (UC is about average among other research universities.)
But that did not assuage students, who said the hikes would cause a few to drop out and many to take on larger loans and work more hours at low-wage jobs. They noted that fees had nearly doubled in the last six years.
About 60 students, many carrying placards that proclaimed "Education Is a Right" and "Fees = Taxes on Students," rallied against the fee hikes outside the regents meeting in the morning. Among them was Melvin Rico, a first-year UCLA biochemistry major from Ojai who wants to become a doctor. He said he helped pay for his education by working about 25 hours a week as a cook and a caretaker for the elderly.
"I'm trying my best just to afford this education and achieve my dreams. And this would make it harder," he said of the fee hike.
