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UC Board Approves OKs Additional 9.6% Tuition Hike

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The University of California system on Thursday raised student tuition by another 9.6 percent for the upcoming school year in response to a sharp reduction in government support.

The UC Board of Regents approved the $1,068 tuition increase, which comes on top of a previously approved 8 percent hike for 2011-2012.

The full board vote followed the finance committee’s approval earlier in the day.

Undergraduate and graduate tuition for California residents will rise to $12,192, which doesn’t include room, board and roughly $1,000 in campus fees. That’s $1,890, or 18 percent, more than what UC undergraduates paid this past academic year and more than three times what they paid a decade ago.

One third of the estimated new revenue will be used for financial aid.

UC officials say the additional tuition increase is needed because the 10-campus system faces a $1 billion budget shortfall caused by rising costs and a $650 million loss in government support in the recently approved state budget.

Even with the tuition increases, administrators say, the cost of a UC education is in line with that of comparable universities in Illinois, Michigan and Virginia — and about one-third the sticker price of private institutions such as Stanford University or the University of Southern California.

The burden of higher tuition is expected to fall heaviest on middle-class students who don’t qualify for financial aid.

Needy students from families earning less than $80,000 have all of their tuition covered by financial aid, and the tuition increase will be waived for one year for many students from families earning up to $120,000.

The UC system’s move follows the California State University’s decision Tuesday to raise tuition by 12 percent on top of a previously approved 10 percent increase.

Annual tuition for in-state CSU undergraduates will increase this fall to $5,472, not including room, board or campus fees averaging $950.

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  • Patti

    This is disgusting!! The Regents should be fired and sent packing. How fair is it that they raise their own salaries when there is such a huge deficit in the UC system. They should at least take a pay cut and help the problem instead of making it worse. Once again, this will fall to the backs of the taxpayers who are already struggling to make ends meet. I say a revolution may be in order!!

  • knhub

    One of the head regents is the majority stockholder of the For Profit College Corp…, ill bet I know which way his vote goes! Greed sons of bs. I bet thier salaries go up soon too.

  • Unbelievable

    SHAME ON YOU REAGENTS!! We as a country are falling farther and farther behind in the global economy and yet decisions are being made to make education even more unattainable. SHAME ON YOU REAGENTS.

  • Rhonda Reed

    Of course they will pass this…they have presidents of schools that need their increases so they can continue to ripoff their students..you kn ow how it is,,,,

  • Reader

    Yet another lifeline being ripped further away from the middle class. Without the middle class, kiss all that is good about this country good-bye!

  • BLOV’N

    UC systme is a joke. The Regents & Professors have been sucking the life out of the students. How about firing the Regents as well as some of the lazy professors that don’t give a damn about the students. Our students once again are flipping the bill so that they can continue to get an inferior education anyway.

  • disgusted

    If you want the biographies of these pompous idiots, visit this web-site. http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regbios/welcome.html
    You can also direct your comments on the web-site. I doubt the Regents will view anything on CBS.

  • Jeremy

    Fascinating! The UC systems cannot afford to give students a break, yet the UC presidents get pay raises of up to $100,000, plus car and housing allowances. Plus, illegals get subsidized tuiton. It’s almost not worth it to go to school in this state.

  • darcyzzz

    Well the students could boycot the school system. With no students there is no tuition money. What is one semester worth to a student. A life time of debt. There is power in numbers. Shut down the school system for 6 months and tuition will drop.

  • Nobama

    I have to laugh, the mush head college students back Obama……… get used to it…….

  • UC Regents

    The University of California (UC) and the middle class of California are at a crossroads. Undergraduate tuition has tripled over the past decade and students now contribute more to their education than they receive in state support. As a result, the current outmoded system of financial aid needs to be revisited, simplified and made relevant to an educational market that demands accountability on an individual level. The first step in this process should be to be to cut headline tuition by one-third across the board.

    Currently, one-third of the fees and tuition collected at UC are recycled in the form of financial aid. With headline tuition set to increase to more than $12,000/year, that means that roughly $4,000/year or $16,000 over four years is collected from one student and given to another at the discretion of the university.

    Few would view this as fair. While most Californians support the premise of equal access for all qualified, bright students regardless of income and background, they also reject the notion of equality of outcome.

    In terms of access, the university has done an admirable job instituting programs that work. These include early outreach to educate students on the importance of a university education and to address problems of perceived access. There is also Eligibility in Local Context (ELC), which gives applicants ranked in the top 4% of their high school class admission to the UC. But on the issue of cost, the university has substituted access for outcome to dangerous effect.

    Take an example of two students: one from an upper middle class background and another from a lower income group, both of whom attend the same UC campus, in the same program, with the same earning power upon graduation. Now, suppose that all of the first student’s tuition earmarked for financial aid is applied to the second student in the form of a transfer payment which is grant or “gift aid” that does not have to be repaid. Upon graduating, the first student would end up with a significant debt load, while the second student would generally be better off as a result of a smaller debt burden and increased financial flexibility.

    As in any system there are winners and losers. Under the current system some students receive large grants from the university; for others it spells disaster in the form of hefty loans that need to be repaid. Underpinning the entire system is the backstop of federal loans that means that practically all students can attend—at a cost.

    The problem is becoming more acute as the stakes increase. Because organizations such as the UC generally favour keeping power rather than divesting it and because the nature of university funding has shifted, little has changed. But equally importantly, the current system has yet to be challenged on its erroneous assumptions.

    First, the current system assumes that it is the University’s place to force some students to directly subsidize others—in effect, determining wealth and debt levels upon graduation. Second, it assumes that some students can rely upon their parents to pay for their education even though is no legal obligation for them to do so; even though the parents’ capacity to pay may be impaired; and even though the parents might not be willing to do so. Third, it assumes that fees levelled at the individual level have the same impact as state-wide revenue generated over a dispersed and large number of taxpayers.

    These assumptions and the system they support mask a growing danger to the middle class student. As tuition skyrockets, it is true that the pot of money for financial aid increases in absolute terms. But this obscures the increasing relative danger, and cost, to the individual student. For if you fall through the cracks now you can end up paying more than $16,000 to subsidise someone else’s education. That’s $16,000 that you, not the taxpayer, and not your parents will have to pay back. And each year, this number marches inexorably higher.

    The UC would counter that it has established generous redistribution guidelines by fiat, for example its Blue and Gold program. While its intentions are good this program covers the recipients of the money and not the payers. Moreover, it wholly misses the point. There is no reason to believe that the University is best placed to decide who to impoverish and who to enrich. Why run an elaborate system of redistribution when its abolishment would reduce costs and increase transparency?

    Previous generations enjoyed generous funding through state largess. In the past, revenue for the university flowed from state taxes which distributed the burden over a vast pool of millions of taxpayers. The burden was diffuse, it imposed a relatively small cost on the taxpayers of California and it generated vast benefits. This is no longer the case. Like it or not, the individual is now responsible for funding his or her education.

    Students are being asked to shoulder ever more responsibility: they are entrusted to choose an appropriate college, to choose a career and to decide on how to finance their education. Yet at the same time, perversely, the university claims the right to force one group of students to explicitly subsidise another, even when access is not at issue. The time has come to call an end to such practices. While a stronger case exists for leaving general revenue streams at the discretion of the university, the current shell game of financial redistribution should end

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