BWith many students still reeling from a 25 percent fee hike
approved last week, the University of California Board of Regents
may consider drastic revisions to the university’s student
fee policy.
The goal of the policy change would be to make fee increases
more gradual and predictable for students.
Although the regents voted 13 to 3 in favor of a fee increase,
at least five expressed frustration that students had to absorb a
large increase in a short period of time.
In addition, Regent Tom Sayles pushed a proposal of his own that
would charge students from families of a certain income level an
additional surcharge to mitigate the impact of fee hikes on
students from lower-income families.
Both items could be up for discussion at the regents’ fall
meetings, though some regents want to take action as early as
September.
Regent Joanne Kozberg was one of those who called for a policy
revision during the July meeting.
“We have to assume our responsibility to this institution
… and that means changing our fee policy to something that is
moderate and predictable,” she said.
The source of the regents’ frustration lies in the
economic boom of the 1990s. Because the UC is a state institution,
the state pays most of the cost for in-state students, a cost that
has gradually risen over the past several years. This means UC
students should have experienced a slow rise in their fees as
well.
However, because the California economy was in the midst of the
dot-com bubble and seemed strong, the state bought out any increase
in student cost to the UC. This has been state policy for the last
seven years.
In fact, since the last fee increase during the 1994-1995
academic year, student fees had actually dropped 10 percent until
the spring of 2003.
But now, with a crashed Internet economy and a $38 billion hole
in the budget, the state can no longer afford to buy out student
cost increases, and has left the UC to pick up the slack. The UC
has done so with sharp cuts to university programs, slashed faculty
pay raises and increased student fees.
Such a sudden about-face in economic fortunes has left some
regents wondering why the board didn’t take advantage of a
strong state economy, when students might have been able to cope
with fee increases.
“We should have been in the position to raise fees when
students could afford it,” said Regent Ward Connerly at the
July meeting.
This has led Connerly, Kozberg, and three other regents to urge
the board to look into a policy that would raise student fees
slowly over the course of months or even years, rather than sending
them skyrocketing within a few weeks.
But while a gradual fee increase might seem appealing, Student
Regent Matt Murray cautions that, because of the state
legislature’s tendency to make decisions for the short-term,
a long-term policy might not work out as planned.
“The way that the university’s budget is decided
upon is a highly political process, and I’m very skeptical
that we could come up with a gradual fee policy that would actually
work,” he said.
Taking a different approach to the fee problem is Sayles, who is
advocating his own proposal that would bill students from families
of an income over $90,000 an additional $1,000 to $3,000 on top of
their fees.
The rationale behind the proposal, which is still in the early
stages of formulation, is that it would shift the cost of a fee
increase to those who could most likely afford it.
However, a university study has found some significant
shortcomings in the proposal, especially since an income threshold
for the surcharge has yet to be set and could be seen as
arbitrary.
It is also unclear as to how much support the proposal would
receive from students and regents, and some UCLA students expressed
opposition to a surcharge.
“Just because they’re going to make more money
we’re going to charge them more? I don’t think
that’s right,” said Emmanuil Smorodinsky, a fifth-year
business economics student.
Vivek Singh, a fourth-year MCD biology student, said he was
worried that such a proposal would be socially divisive, splitting
students into “classes.”
Sayles could not be reached for comment at press time.
Michigan State University experimented with an income-based fee
system, when, in 1968, it began charging students based on a
sliding scale of their parents’ income.
The formula was abandoned after two years because its
administration proved too complex, and many parents complained
about perceived inequalities.
In general, students at UCLA seem more concerned about how high
their fees could climb rather than how or when they were
implemented.
“As student fees go, there should definitely be a
limit,” said Nick Dwork, a graduate student in biomedical
engineering. “Or else you’ll be excluding students who
could go to college from going to college.”