In the midst of UC-wide tuition hikes, graduate students are facing an additional and less publicized increase in costs.
On Nov. 19, the University of California Board of Regents authorized a 20 percent increase on Professional Degree Supplemental Tuition for the Nursing graduate professional degree programs at UCLA, UC Davis, UC Irvine and UC San Francisco for the 2015-2016 school year.
PDST was established in 1994 to support regular tuition channels as a means of offsetting decreases in state funding to maintain graduate degree program quality. It is a fund earmarked specifically for individual graduate degree programs.
This increase in PDST is compounded by the recent UC-wide tuition hike, which will also apply to nursing graduate students.
However, PDST is not as transparent as regular tuition and can complicate the cost-benefit analysis many graduate students must make when choosing where to apply. It serves as a way for graduate schools to impose higher costs on students while avoiding the more obvious and politically charged UC-wide tuition hikes.
The UCLA School of Nursing has also not done its due diligence soliciting student opinion and reaching out for the input of those most affected by the increases.
This specific hike was discussed two years ago by the UC regents but was postponed. At the time, UCLA School of Nursing officials did meet with students to discuss the possible cost increases. Strangely, they expected the relevance of those conversations to carry over into the present situation through word of mouth rather than direct administration-to-student interaction.
The UC argues that at a time when there is a shortage of nursing instructors in California, an increase in the cost of PDST is necessary to maintain program quality and attract top talent from the medical profession.
But this method is highly counterintuitive.
Raising the costs to students will raise the financial barrier of entry in the nursing profession. When students enter the workforce, they will be less likely to choose lower-paying jobs as nursing instructors if they have extra student loans to pay off.
Admittedly, some of the funds from the increased PDST will go toward financial aid to help low income students. But this cannot help every graduate student and many will be left out in the cold, wondering why they are paying more and more for school every year.
While there have been continued protests by undergraduates over the UC-wide tuition hikes, there should be more outrage over the additional PDST increases. Graduate students are facing much greater costs through opaque channels.