Fees rise to cover lawsuits

The University of California, which is being sued for raising
professional student fees, is now increasing fees even higher to
cover its losses.

The temporary educational fee increase, which was approved by
the UC Board of Regents on July 21, will be allocated to cover the
estimated $20 million in fees the UC has been unable to collect as
a result of lawsuits levied against the UC by professional
students.

The professional students allege fee increases the university
made since the state budget crisis were illegal.

Now, in addition to paying a 10 percent fee increase in
2005-2006, UC professional school students will pay an additional
$700 next year and another $1,050 in the 2006-2007 academic
year.

Finally, beginning in the 2007-2008 academic year, the UC will
assess all enrolled undergraduate, graduate and professional
students a $60 surcharge, and will continue to do so until all
costs relating to the court order are covered.

“I think it’s really inappropriate,” said
Jared Fox, president of the UCLA Graduate Students Association.
“The fee is supposed to replace money that was lost because
of a lawsuit that is still pending. It’s very much possible
that the regents could win the lawsuit, in which case they would
get all of the money back that they lost temporarily.”

These increases will generate an additional $7.5 million per
year in the UC’s income from student fees, according to the
board of regents.

The UC Office of the President says student fee increases are
necessary to maintain the quality of its academic programs and to
continue to provide adequate financial aid in the wake of budget
cuts occurring simultaneously with enrollment increasing.

“Preservation of academic quality and maintenance of
sufficient financial aid remain major issues confronting many of
the professional schools,” said UC President Robert Dynes in
a press release.

The class action suit filed by professional students claims that
the UC breached a contract with students entering before December
2002, despite the UC’s publicized policy of keeping fees
constant until graduation. A similar lawsuit was filed in July
under the same claims, but representing a later entering class.

The UC has estimated that its losses in the first lawsuit alone
could rise to $55 million if the UC is ordered to issue refunds to
students.

The chance that the UC’s revenue shortfall will escalate
as the two lawsuits progress has left some students wondering just
how high their fees will be raised to compensate the university for
its legal troubles. The second lawsuit includes provisions to avoid
that possibility.

Now students who aren’t involved with either lawsuit are
paying for the regents’ mistakes, Fox said.

Other options the regents discussed in May included a large
one-time fee imposed on professional school students, rather than a
phased-in fee. Another option was to charge every UC student $75
per year for two years.

These plans were scrapped because they raised fees above the
caps set in the UC’s 2004 compact with Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger.

At their July meeting, many regents expressed reluctance to
approve any measure that would raise fees.

Some of the regents urged the board to establish a long-range
increase schedule to allow students more time for advance financial
planning, and to hopefully prevent dire budget situations such as
the one in which the UC is currently embroiled.

“I think some of the regents … offered interesting
alternatives that merit looking into, such as long-range
planning,” said Maria Ledesma, the student
regent-designate.

Fox says the regents have been talking about initiating some
sort of long-term planning for over a decade, and it has yet to
come to fruition.

“You just can’t do this to students. For example,
the students who were coming in three or four years ago, they were
expecting to pay about $9,000 per year,” Fox said.

The inability to budget their education expenses in advance has
created problems for many students, he said. Some of these
students’ fees are now approaching $25,000 per year.

“There’s no way that you can budget for that,”
Fox said.

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