Reed wrong, fee hikes do not help
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the University of California charged its students a fee of $60 a semester. The year was 1960, 120 of those dollars being worth a whopping 816.12 in 2006 constant dollars. Alas, nostalgia is like a grammar lesson where we find the past perfect and the present tense.
What has happened over the last 50 years to octuple the cost of attending the UC? Inflation is but a small “˜part of the elephant in the room,’ so to speak, of the rising cost to students of public education. A much more substantive chapter in the book of restructuring is devoted to what Tristan Reed has so subtly championed in his article on February 21, 2008, “Rise up and fight for the right to higher student fees.”
Reed argues that increasing student fees is the best solution to the governor’s budget cuts to the UC because the fees will be offset by increased university grants. He states, “Most money for student aid comes from fees. If you freeze fees, you freeze the amount of aid available.” Most money for student aid in fact does not come from student fees. The California Postsecondary Education Commission reports that, “Over the past 20 years, for example, 20 ““ 33 percent of student fee revenues have been distributed to needy students in the form of institutional financial aid.” Regarding the current increase, the UC office of the president has promised that, “The University will also return an amount equivalent to 33 percent of revenues generated by the undergraduate fee increase to financial aid.” What a deal! I give you 100 percent of my increase and you give me 33 percent back in return.
Only in the world of capricious, Pickwickian, neoliberal discourse does 33 percent amount to “most.” What I find most chillingly cynical is Reed’s conclusion that “the best strategy to keep the UC accessible, therefore, is to raise fees, in order to fund more aid for the middle class and those normally excluded from grant money, such as undocumented students” appeared on the same day that the Bruin’s cover story highlighted the awful struggles to afford UCLA by undocumented students. The suggestion that raising fees on undocumented students to help them get grant money that they aren’t legally entitled to is appalling.
Noah Ebner
Fourth-year geography student