In the upcoming school year, Adam Brown will pay almost $3,000 more in tuition to attend UCLA than he did this year.
Brown, a second-year aerospace engineering student from Indiana, is one of about 1,000 non-resident undergraduate students at UCLA. The UC Board of Regents decided to raise fees by $2,000 for all those students in its meeting last week, a decision that the board said it hopes will create additional funds to address state budget cuts.
In addition to the $2,000, Brown and other out-of-state students will face a $36 increase in their registration fee, on top of an additional $687 as part of an increase to their educational fee.
Although this tuition increase appears drastic, it is not disproportionate to the increases of in-state fees, said UC Office of the President spokesman Ricardo Vazquez.
He added that the out-of-state fees within the UC system are still lower than those at comparable public universities, even after the increases.
The funds generated from the tuition increases will be distributed at the discretion of each individual university, although each will use the funds to address the effects of state budget cuts, according to the UC Board of Regents’ Web site.
The UCLA administration is currently in the process of deciding how much total revenue these increases will create for UCLA, as well as how that money will be used, said Phil Hampton, a UCLA spokesman.
“Many factors will be considered by the chancellor when deciding how to distribute the money, but the campus’s highest priority is protecting the quality of instruction from the effects of state budget cuts,” Hampton said.
For Brown, whose family moved from California to South Bend, Ind., when he was 5 years old, the increase in fees means he now has to apply for scholarships, get a summer internship and find a job if he hopes to continue his education at UCLA.
Although Brown currently receives a prestigious scholarship from the School of Engineering, he said he doesn’t know how far that money will go now that his student fees has increased.
“For my family, tuition here is a tremendous chunk of income. I understand that I have to pay more, but I can’t afford to go here if the prices increase,” Brown said.
As a result of the fee increases, some out-of-state students are even considering transferring to other schools.
“I have looked at transferring to private universities in the area, because they would offer more scholarships,” said Alexandra Weaver, a first-year undeclared student from Illinois.
Although Weaver said she understands that the UC is a public university that is designed for California students, she said that the difference between out-of-state and in-state student tuition is too high.
“It’s frustrating. I think the price distance is a lot more than it should be, and the fee increases make that gap even bigger,” she said.
Brown, too, said he acknowledged that he has to pay higher fees as an out-of-state student, but he called the increase a huge jump in tuition to make in just one quarter.
By choosing to accept out-of-state students, he said, the university has the responsibility to ensure equal rights for those students and to consult with them before increasing their tuition by such a large margin.
“It is an unfair action to take, and if it has to happen (the UC Regents) need to have some input from us,” he said.
Brown also said that he was concerned the board will start looking at out-of-state students as a quick fix to the budget crisis and that they might continue to increase out-of-state tuition in the future.
“If I don’t protest this increase, then where does it end?” he asked.
But, according to Vazquez, the fee increases are simply a reflection of difficult budget times within the university, and the UC does not want to deter non-residents from applying.
He stressed that out-of-state students are a valuable part of the UC system.
“We value having out-of-state students because they contribute to the geographical diversity, and they enrich the intellectual climate of the campus,” he said.
At UCLA, even with the increase in tuition, that geographical diversity is likely to remain untouched, as many out-of-state students said that they are still willing to attend the university because of the unique opportunities it provides.
Hanne Goetz, a first-year international development studies student from Minnesota, said that she decided to attend UCLA because she thought college would be a good time to leave Minneapolis and live on her own in a different part of the country.
“I like UCLA because of the weather and the people, and I am able to do things like take Swahili, meet people from around the world and attend a lot of interesting events that are held on campus,” she said.
Brown, too, said that even with the rising prices, he will stay at UCLA, and he will just work harder to make the necessary money to fund his education.
“I like this campus too much to leave,” he said. “This is a separate stage in my life, and I don’t want to live in the Midwest anymore.”