Why We Must Stop the Fee Increases

Yudof’s Proposed Student Fee Increases:  the Destruction of Public Education in California

By Mike Rotkin   UC-AFT VP for Organizing

A century ago, when the University of California was created as a public university to serve the people of California, there was no tuition. As late as 1960, when California’s Master Plan for higher education was created, there was still no tuition at UC. In that Master Plan, there was a provision for three sectors of higher education: UC, the California State University system, and the Community College system. UC would be expected to admit students from the top 12 and ½ percent of California’s graduating high school seniors, but there would be no tuition in any of the sectors of higher education in the State.

Students were guaranteed the right to attend the highest quality public institution of higher learning in the State (and arguably in the world) irrespective of their family’s income and dependent solely upon the quality of their academic ability and performance.

Since then, things have changed.

Although students did pay small fees at UC for things like public transit, specialized student services, etc., up until the late 1960s, UC students still attended what was essentially a tuition-free institution of higher learning. By the early 1970s, although still claiming that UC had no “tuition,” fees had risen to about $250 (depending on the campus) per quarter. Although tuition had been instituted at UC, it was still relatively affordable by most students in California.

Currently tuition at UC, although still misnamed as “fees” for obvious political reasons, are $2,596 a quarter or $7,788 a year. When you add in transportation, sports, activity fees, and many other similar fees, the total fee owed the Regents goes over $10,000 a year on most campuses. At UCSC, for example, the total annual fee to attend the University (not including living costs) is $10,011 for 2009-10. The President and the Regents of UC are proposing a fee increases of 32% (in addition to the 9% increase they approved earlier this year), which will drive tuition over $13,200 a year. Don’t forget that that tuition is on top of living costs such as housing, food, clothing, transportation, books, etc. that students have to pay while attending the University.

While about a third of the students at UC receive financial aid, most of that takes the form of student loans, which even before a 32% increase, typically saddle graduates with insurmountable debt. Compounding this problem is the serious threat that the State might defund or largely defund Cal Grants, the largest source of student financial aid grants at UC.

The majority of students at UC must now work while attending school in order to help pay for their university education. If you divide the tuition at UC by the California minimum hourly wage existing at any point in time, you can determine how many weeks a student would have to work to pay for UC tuition (and remember this is only for tuition and not books and living expenses). In 1979, it took a student working at a minimum wage job six-weeks (e.g. a job for part of the summer) to pay UC tuition. In  1990, it took eighteen weeks at that pay rate to earn enough to pay for UC tuition, or half of the school year at a full-time job. If the Regents approve a 32% tuition hike in November, it will take a student twenty-four weeks, or just short of the entire academic year at a full-time minimum wage job in order to cover the cost of UC tuition. And then he or she will still have to pay for other living expenses. Even with a year-round, full-time job, a student will not be able to cover tuition and living costs at UC!

The conclusion here is not mysterious. The Regents are now planning to price attendance at a UC out of the reach of not only low-income students and their families, but beyond the reach of the vast majority of working families, including even many upper-middle income families. This will effectively privatize what has been one of the great public universities in the world. Most families could not afford to send even one child to UC at these prices.

How many families in California can afford to spend $50,000 (often closer to $60,000 or 70,000, since many students take longer than four years to graduate) to send a child to college, plus covering living costs? Even with the addition of student loans and students working while attending the University, it is not realistic to assume that this education is affordable by anyone other than an elite class of Californians. And what happens to the family that wants to send more than one child to college? In short, the proposal currently under serious consideration by the UC Regents will destroy public education in California. Perhaps more than anything else going on today in our State, the proposed increase in student fees at UC, which is, unfortunately, paralleled by similar fee increases in the other sectors of higher education, represents the death of the California Dream.