Last week, UC President Mark Yudof revealed a new system-wide fundraising program to combat rising student fees resulting from declining state support.
He also proposed increasing the minimum household income to qualify for the Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan, which would cover all University fees for approximately 800 more students.
While the plan is ambitious, this board believes it may be too narrow in its scope, and it leaves us asking why, and more importantly, why now?
The Blue and Gold plan currently covers all University fees for students from a household with an income less than $60,000, which was the California state median when the plan was implemented in February, according to the UC Office of the President. The proposal would raise that number to $70,000.
Project You Can, which sets Yudof’s fundraising goal for the 10 UC campuses, aims to raise $1 billion over the next four years.
Yudof cited increasing access to the UC system and encouraging students from lower-income families to apply as the motivation behind the plan. However, 800 students gaining access will not fix the UC system. The students who could benefit from the increase comprise less than 1 percent in a system of 172,000 undergraduates.
It alienates the majority of students, who will also be paying higher tuition and fees. These are the same students who may not be eligible for the Pell and Cal grants that the federal government allows students in the lower income brackets to apply for.
But with the UC Board of Regents meeting and a potential increase in student fees looming in November, what better moment to make a well-timed public relations move? Especially at a high school in Fresno where the majority of students are already eligible for federal aid and nearly half attend schools within the UC system, Yudof’s maneuver suggests a pointed agenda.
More funding is always an effective solution when the problem is a serious lack of funds. However, if such an ambitious goal is plausible now, during such a difficult economic crisis, why hasn’t such an active effort been made in the past several years to prevent such a deficiency?
It seems as though Yudof has done nothing more than give a name and collective goal for programs individual campuses have been coordinating for years ““ an effort we applaud.
However, if the quality of education within the UC system does indeed decrease, a concern many of the administrations have recently voiced, an economic incentive certainly may be the best way to encourage students to apply to an overcrowded and suffering system.
We feel that the benefit for future generations is consistently the main concern of the administration, as though current students and the current state of our Universities are a lost cause.
This board agrees that the UC system is in dire need of help. But while we appreciate the UC President’s efforts, we call for a broader view of the budget crisis ““ one that goes beyond simply trying to appease a minute segment of the student population.