The
cost of a four-year college education went up again in California on Wednesday, as leaders of the
University of California and California State University systems approved their
sixth round of student fee hikes in seven years. Under orders from Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger to reduce campus spending to help make up a statewide
budget deficit, the governing boards of the two systems said they had to ask
students and their families to shoulder some of the burden come fall. "We are doing everything we can
to persuade the governor and the Legislature that additional funding for the
CSU ought to be viewed as an investment, not an expense," said CSU
Trustee William Hauck. "We are going to continue to fight that fight, but
as of today, we are left with not much in the way of alternatives."
Cal State
trustees meeting in Long Beach
voted 15-3 to raise yearly undergraduate fees by $276, or 10 percent. The increase
means that undergraduates will pay an average of $3,797 next year - twice as much
as what a CSU school cost in the fall of 2000. University of California
board members, meanwhile, tentatively approved a 7.4 percent fee increase that
would bring the average annual cost for undergraduates to $8,007 for the
2008-09 academic year, which also represents a doubling in price from the start
of the decade. The
governor restored about $200 million of the $720 million he originally proposed
cutting from UC and CSU's requests. But system officials said that even
with the fee hikes they still would have to curtail enrollment, reduce course
offerings and scale back campus services. Both CSU and UC administrators said
that up to one-third of the money generated by the higher fees would go toward
boosting financial aid to offset the potential impact on low-income students.