In response to additional fee hikes at the University of
California, the graduate student government at UCLA is bolstering a
systemwide campaign to lobby state legislators against further
increases.
At its Wednesday forum, the Graduate Student Association
discussed the campaign along with a revised budget proposal and an
upcoming financial aid survey for graduate students.
The University of California Student Association-led campaign
“No More Tuition Increase,” seeks to prevent future
student fee increases by lobbying and raising public awareness of
the issue.
In December the UC Board of Regents approved a $135 spring
quarter student fee increase for the current academic year.
According to the present UC budget, there could be an estimated 35
percent increase in student fees for 2003-2004.
UCSA is organizing a lobby day in March, where members and
interested students will travel to Sacramento to press legislators
not to increase fees.
“We’re also putting pressure on the regents not to
increase (student fees), and ideally would want them to join in our
lobbying efforts,” said Hanish Rathod, GSA external vice
president and UCSA board member.
But he added that regent help in the lobbying effort “is
highly unlikely.”
UCSA is working on publicizing the lobby day and encouraging
students to organize local lobbying.
In the meantime, UCSA faces the rejection of its revised budget
proposal by GSA on Wednesday.
Several council members expressed concerns and skepticism about
what they see as UCSA’s attempt to avoid tackling the issue
of stipends.
Last year UCSA issued unprecedented stipends totaling $7,200 to
its two highest-ranked members: Chris Neal, external vice president
of Undergraduate Students Association Council ““ who earlier
this month resigned as vice chair of UCSA ““ and UCSA Chair
Steve Klass.
“The budget proposal came up twice already in past forums,
and we had rejected it because it failed to deal with
stipends,” said Fiona Galvin of the Social Sciences
Council.
Some forum members expressed the desire to have UCSA address its
incurred $2,000 deficit ““ brought down from $17,000 ““
by eliminating the stipends.
“Instead of doing that, they’re cutting budgets on
things like postage costs,” Galvin said.
Others believed stipends should not have existed in the first
place.
Neal and Klass already receive funds from their respective
student associations, said Haig Hovsepian, forum member of the
Biological Sciences Council.
The forum then decided to issue an invitation to Klass to attend
the next forum during sixth week, so he could explain what the
stipends allow him to do.
Rathod said the idea of providing stipends to the two chair
positions was to “increase the accessibility of the
positions” so interested students can apply without having to
worry about financial sacrifices.
Some members agreed that these positions require a large amount
of time, and that providing stipends is reasonable.
GSA then proposed disapproving the budget proposal and to never
discuss it again at the forums. It passed 11-2.
However, Rathod said since the original UCSA budget proposal had
already been approved last quarter, this decision will not have any
effects on the budget plan. But he believes it will still have
symbolic effect.
“It will still send the message,” he said.
The recent student fee raise also prompted the Institutional
Research and Information Services in the graduate division to
consider creating an online financial aid survey.
The survey will collect financial data, concentrating on
previously excluded expenditures such as the cost of attending
conferences and child care, said Pamela Taylor, director of
Institutional Research and Information Services.
The data will be analyzed and hopefully included in the
financial aid budget for next school year, she said.