The University of California Board of Regents will vote this
week on a package of fee increases for UC professional school
students that would result in fees rising thousands of dollars.
The regents will be meeting Wednesday and Thursday at UC San
Francisco’s Laurel Heights campus to discuss a variety of
topics, including professional school fee increases, undergraduate
eligibility and admissions and the UC’s management of
national nuclear laboratories.
The package of increases for professional school students
includes an additional 7 percent increase over the 3 percent
approved last November in response to the budget crisis and a
temporary increase of $700 to offset costs of class action lawsuits
filed against the university regarding previous fee increases.
Students potentially affected by the two proposed increases will
be those enrolled in any UC program in law, business and
management, medicine, dentistry, optometry, pharmacy, veterinary
medicine, nursing and, at UCLA, theater, film and television. The
proposed increases were first discussed in May, but the regents
tabled the vote until this meeting.
The increases will be phased in over a two-year period, and will
cause fees at UCLA professional schools to rise significantly,
ranging from a $1,502 increase for School of Theater, Film and
Television to a $2,520 increase for the Anderson School of
Management.
This is not the first time the regents have substantially raised
professional school fees in recent years. In May 2004 the regents
voted to increase the professional degree fee for the 2004-2005
academic year for both new and continuing students. The amount of
the increase varied by school and program, but ranged from $2,690
to $6,570 above the previous year’s fees.
Just last week, attorneys representing professional school
students at the UC filed a class-action lawsuit in the San
Francisco Superior Court, claiming the May 2004 fee hikes are a
breach of contract, as students entering in the fall of 2003 say
they were promised their fees would remain constant until their
graduation.
This lawsuit, the second of its kind, was filed July 12, only a
week before the regents will vote to raise these students’
fees yet again.
At the time those professional students were applying, the UC
stated on Web sites and in application materials, as well as in the
UC budget, that it would not raise fees for the duration of
students’ enrollment ““ fee increases would only apply
to new students, said Danielle Leonard, an attorney representing
the students in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit includes all UC professional students who accepted
admission in or before September 2003, including those who deferred
and began classes at a later time.
An estimated 3,000 students have been affected by these
increases and may be potential joiners of the suit, Leonard
said.
UC officials say the fee increases mentioned in the lawsuit were
unavoidable. Professional schools have been hit especially hard in
budget cuts, and the regents could see that increasing student fees
continues to be necessary to ensure that students receive a quality
education, said Ravi Poorsina, a spokeswoman for the UC Office of
the President.
When the UC made the disputed increases, the California state
budget had cut professional school funding by more than $42
million.
“We still stand by the fact that the university has the
right to raise fees to maintain the quality of programs for these
students,” Poorsina said.
It will likely be several years before there is any resolution
on the suit, Leonard said. A previous lawsuit, filed in 2003 by the
entering class for the 2002-2003 academic year under similar
complaints, is still ongoing.
The UC estimates its losses so far in the 2003 lawsuit at more
than $20 million. Lost revenue could increase to $55 million if the
court orders the UC to refund affected students, according to
UCOP.
The $700 temporary educational fee, part of the increase package
regents are voting on this week, is to offset the costs of the
first lawsuit levied against the university in response to previous
fee increases. The temporary fee would increase to $1,050 next
year.
On Wednesday, the regents’ discussion items will include
undergraduate eligibility and admissions and the “One
Thousand Teachers, One Million Minds” initiative aimed
quadrupling the UC system’s annual production of credentialed
science and mathematics teachers for K-12 classrooms. The regents
will also consider action on creating a College of Biological
Sciences at UC Davis.
Thursday’s discussion will be focused on the hotly
contested professional fee increases and an open session of the
national laboratories oversight committee, with a report on the UC
team’s bid for Los Alamos National Laboratory and potential
action for modifications and extensions to the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory management contract.
Bid proposals for Los Alamos, a nuclear laboratory in New
Mexico, are due to the Department of Energy on Tuesday. The UC has
managed the lab since World War II, but after a series of recent
fiscal and security snafus, the Department of Energy opened the
contract to open competition. The UC, teamed with the San
Francisco-based engineering company Betchel National, is competing
against a partnership formed by the University of Texas and
Lockheed-Martin for the seven-year renewable contract for the
lab.
The regents will also discuss the UC’s final budget, which
was signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week, and discuss
information-technology efficiencies and transportation
sustainability at its campuses.