Out of Reach
Lisa Donchak, Andrea Pyka & Jeremy SpitzCampus News Editor, Health/Science Editor, Campus News Reporter
“The two governing boards reaffirm the long-established principle that state colleges and the University of California shall be tuition-free to all residents of the state.”
Not in accordance with California’s original Master Plan for Higher Education stated above, student fees at the University of California (UC) have almost doubled since 2001.
Part I – Rising Costs of Education
The most recent fee increase is the latest product of about 30 years’ worth of cuts in state funding for the university. In the 1985-86 school year, the state paid 88.1 percent of each student’s cost of education while student fees amounted to 10.9 percent. State funding decreased in the next 23 years, accounting for only 21 percent of the cost per student.
This year’s cuts are due in part to the newly enacted Compact for Higher Education, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed in 2005 with UC President Robert Dynes and CSU Chancellor Charles Reed. The document was instated to mandate an increase in state funding for higher education by four percent each year for five years “to provide sufficient funding for programs and to preserve quality.”
The compact also limited institutions to a maximum fee increase of 10 percent each year. In order to meet budgetary needs, the compact stated that each university would keep the fee revenue “without a corresponding reduction in state funds.”
In an attempt to fix the $14.5 billion annual state deficit, the governor wants to cut $17.3 billion from the state budget. This includes a 9.5 percent reduction in state higher education funding.
But before these budget cuts were announced, the UC Board of Regents was already discussing increasing fees. In March 2007, the board voted to raise student fees by seven percent.
With the announced budget cuts, student fees may increase even further, an issue that the regents will discuss in their upcoming March meeting at UC San Francisco Mission Bay.
According to the website of Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, fees for undergraduate students at CSUs have increased over the past five years, up 94 percent at CSUs and 84 percent at UCs since 2002.
Garamendi said that the UC Board of Regents and CSU trustees have increased student fees in an attempt to increase revenue, and that continuing down this path could create severe consequences for the higher education system. He said that in 2002 the UC gained over $16 billion in economic growth and brought in $4 billion in state and tax revenue.
“As [the regents] consider the university’s budget, I’m hopeful my fellow regents will look for alternatives to raising student fees,” Garamendi said.
Garamendi recently joined forces with hundreds of students at the state capitol, protesting the looming student fee increases and the budget cuts for the California education system.
“I have asked my fellow UC regents and CSU trustees to halt these increases, which amount to a hefty tax on students, and I will keep up this fight to ensure that California keeps its historical promise to put higher education within reach of every California student,” Garamendi said to the crowd of protesters.
Nevertheless, Garamendi said that the UC system plays a vital role in the economic viability and growth prospects of California.
“It is clear that our UC system provides immeasurable contributions to our state, our nation and the world,” Garamendi said in an e-mail to City on a Hill Press. “We can’t continue to make short-sighted decisions that undermine the quality, availability and future growth of this remarkable public institution.”
According to Lynda Brewer, a staff adviser for the regents at UC Irvine, the UC is trying to find ways to effectively deal with the recent budget reduction proposed by the governor.
“We’re struggling to see if the full seven percent has to be implemented, or [if it has to be] more than 7 percent,” Brewer said.
In a press conference with UC Santa Cruz student media, D’Artagnan Scorza, the student regent designate, addressed his concerns over student fees, even though he will not have the capacity to cast a vote on the board until early June.
“I’m not going to vote to raise student fees, because I think that’s something that we shouldn’t be looking at as an option,” Scorza said.
Scorza and Ben Allen, a fellow student regent who is able to cast his vote, think that most students are in favor of a consistent cost-of-living fee increase, on par with inflation.
“If fee increases really were the cost of living – you know, 3 percent – I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with that,” Allen said. “But the problem is that every year we’re coming back to students at double or even more than double the cost of living and this year they’re talking about even higher than that. That’s not fair. That doesn’t help families plan.”
Part II – The Pillars of a UC Education
The University of California has traditionally rested on three pillars: accessibility, affordability and quality. However, with an increase in student fees, these three pillars may slowly begin to crumble.
Affordability
With the cost of a UC education rising, many wonder whether the University of California will be able to stay competitive with other public and private institutions of higher education.
“I think we’re a good deal, but we aren’t as good a deal as we used to be,” Ruiz said. “And unfortunately tuition is going to go up.”
Unlike the UC, private elite universities like Harvard, Yale and Stanford are slashing the tuition ticket price for their universities in hopes of attracting more students and staying competitive.
With some private universities dropping their tuition price, Regent Frederick Ruiz believes that the UC’s raising fees will dissuade students from attending the UC campuses.
“I think certainly a free education at Stanford would [be] very high on my list of college opportunities,” Ruiz said. “But again, the private institutions’ requirements for students to attend are much more stringent than the UC system. [Private institutions] only offer so many openings. They’re not growing as fast as we are.”
Arthur Kraft, dean of the Argyros School of Business and Economics at Chapman University, said that with the increasing cost of a UC education, Chapman may become one of the UC’s competitors.
“In all likelihood, some students may need to consider lower cost options,” Kraft said. “It is possible that some UC students may decide to go to the elite private institutions, if they are admitted.”
To help put an end to the ever-increasing student fees, Tuition Relief Now, a student-led and volunteer-driven organization, is working to help make college more affordable for students.
According to Ami Patel, communications director for Tuition Relief Now, students and faculty are working to put an initiative on the Nov. 28 ballot to create a five-year freeze on tuition for undergraduate UC and CSU students.
In order to qualify for the Nov. 2008 campaign, Tuition Relief Now still needs to gather approximately half a million signatures by April 17.
If the law is passed, it will raise new revenue for the cost of education for UC and CSU students by adding a 1 percent tax on personal incomes of over $1 million, Patel said.
Ann Daramola, a fifth-year UCSC student and campus organizer for Tuition Relief Now, is currently on a mission to complete the goal of getting a total of 5,000 signatures per student representative.
“Schools cost a lot of money, but it shouldn’t be like that,” Daramola said. “People working in financial aid and the administration are seeing [how costs are increasing], we come in as a solution.”
Accessibility
With the increase in the cost of education and a lack of funding, families who rely on scholarships and financial aid may be less interested in sending their children to a UC.
According to Ann Draper, financial aid director at UCSC, the fee increases will directly affect the ability of low-income students to attend UC campuses.
“Each year, financial aid recipients must earn and borrow a little more to offset increasing costs,” Draper said. “If this trend continues, in a few years a UC education will not be an affordable option for low- and middle-income students.”
To help cover education costs for financial aid students, Congress recently increased the maximum Federal Pell Grant, a federal program for low-income students, to $4,310.
While financial aid has a stable funding income for the current school year, Draper said that the impending fee increases will require that financial aid start to look for new funding.
“If we don’t get new funding for the upcoming years, there could be a problem,” Draper said.
Janine Carmona, a fourth-year community studies major and student representative for the UC Affordability Workshop, has been attending and protesting at Regent meetings since her first year at UCSC. Over the years, she has seen fees increase and quality go down.
According to Carmona, UC undergraduate fees have grown 93 percent since 2001 and educational fees have increased by 115 percent. Graduate student fees have increased by 106 percent in the same time period.
“The UC sends the state a budget asking it for money, and the state knows that the UC is perfectly willing to raise our fees to cover costs without much fuss,” Carmona said.
Carmona strongly advocates that the UC continue to receive funding from the state and remain affordable for all incoming students.
“If the university continues the way it’s going, [students are] going to have to work more hours, take on more debt and put up with [fewer] student services,” she said.
Student Regent Scorza shared other concerns about student debt and fees.
“The challenge has been that the sticker price shock really scares people out of coming to the institution,” Scorza said. ”[A higher price of education] doesn’t guarantee that we’ll have access for people who can’t traditionally afford the university.”
Foaad Khosmood, a UCSC graduate student in computer science, believes that the fee increases will cause a decrease in accessibility. Khosmood competed with Scorza for the Student Regent position last year and reached the later rounds of the application process.
“We have fees being increased all the time, and not much break being given to new students. This … cuts out low income students from even coming to the University of California and makes us kind of an elitist institution.” Khosmood said. ”[The UC is] not a money-making institution. It should really embrace the fact that it’s a public university and that a public university should serve the public, and not just the part of the public that can afford it.”
Families who rely on financial aid and scholarships to help send their children to college are concerned that fee increases will deny any future educational opportunities.
To keep the UC affordable for students from all income levels, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and UC Regent Richard Blum helped launch the UC Affordability Workgroup to identify new funding for undergraduate financial aid programs.
“Chancellor Birgeneau and I agree the campuses are becoming less and less affordable to students,” Garamendi wrote in an e-mail to CHP. “I hope the Chancellor’s report serves as a wake-up call that we need to take action immediately to maintain and improve access and affordability for California students and their families.”
In a recent Q&A in UC Berkeley News, Birgeneau addressed future concerns of providing access to low-income students at UC’s. According to the article, Birgeneau believes that the self-help [the amount a student is expected to contribute from work and borrowing] is going to increase over the years.
Birgeneau expressed concerns that freezing fees for students would potentially lead to an increase in student debt.
“When fees increase, 33 percent of those funds go back into financial aid, what we call ‘return-to-aid.’ If you freeze fees, you freeze the return-to-aid. We’ve projected the self-help level in 2017 to be $16,700 if fees increase 6 percent a year; if you freeze fees, the self-help level will be $18,300, because both the return-to-aid funds and Cal grants [which cover fees for recipients] remain stagnant while non-tuition keep going up,” he said to UCB News.
However, Hailey Snow, external vice chair for the Student Union Assembly (SUA), is leading a campaign to combat fee hikes.
She recently headed the UCSC delegation at the annual UC Student Lobby Conference, where she strongly advocated for more funding for schools.
“There’s definitely going to be a fee increase. It can be anywhere from seven to 30 percent,” she said. “Financial aid will not cover that.”
She is concerned that fees are increasing much faster than inflation, without a significant increase in wages.
“We are paying almost double what we were seven years ago,” Snow said. “The wages students are going to be making after college has stayed pretty much the same. The average student debt is over 20,000 dollars.”
Quality
Snow believes that the fee raises will correspond to a decline in educational quality and services.
“There won’t be any new faculty hired or [the development of] new programs,” Snow said. “Enrollment is going to decrease which is going to affect our campus diversity. We’re going to be paying more for a mediocre education.”
California Assemblyman John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) believes that governor’s budget cuts won’t just affect affordability and accessibility. Rising fees may cause the university to default on its first promise, quality.
“Over time we’re on the verge of pricing out the middle class of California from a university education,” he said. “I think [the future UC student body] would be a less economically diverse group.”
Ruiz believes that decreased diversity would affect the overall quality of the UC institution.
“We serve a very diverse base, and I think that when we do things that prevent us from education that diverse population, we put the UC at risk,” Ruiz said.
According to Ruiz, raising tuition will impact the majority population in the central valley, namely Latinos.
Additionally, Garamendi said that tuition increases could affect the overall future quality of higher education in California.
“Education is the ‘great equalizer,’ the one immutable variable that gives every child a chance at a healthy, vibrant and successful future,” he said. “But continued, sharp tuition increases will put these great institutions out of reach for far too many of our students, and reverse the progress we’ve made in accelerating the economic progress of California’s underserved populations.”
All things aside, Garamendi nevertheless believes that the UC system plays a vital role in the economic viability and growth prospects of California.
“It is clear that our UC system provides immeasurable contributions to our state, our nation and the world,” he said. “We can’t continue to make short-sighted decisions that undermine the quality, availability and future growth of this remarkable public institution.”