Students from across the state will come to UCLA this week to
lobby the University of California Board of Regents, protest
against fee increases and take off their shirts.
Though it may sound like an episode of a reality TV show, the
derobing will be part of a larger demonstration at the
regents’ meeting that UC undergraduate and graduate students
have organized to fight against the proposed increase in fees and
decrease in financial aid funding.
Some students will go to the first meeting today in Covel
Commons to speak out, but they will come out in real force on
Thursday when the regents plan to make their final vote. Up to 300
students from all the UC campuses are expected to show up.
Per an agreement with the governor, the budget for the 2005-2006
academic year includes an eight percent increase to undergraduate
fees and a ten percent increase to graduate fees.
If the regents approve a further increase to fees on top of
those from the last few years, they may as well take the shirts off
the students’ backs, said Roy Samaan, campus organizing
director for the Undergraduate Students Association Council
external vice president’s office.
And to emphasize this point, more than a hundred students will
take off their shirts.
“Students will … offer their shirts, literally the
shirts off their back, to the regents to let them know that
that’s all they can give and they can’t possibly give
anymore,” said Jennifer Lilla, the president of the UC
Students Association and a graduate student at UC San
Francisco.
A portion of this income from university fees goes back to
financial aid. In the past, the amount has typically been 33
percent, but this year it was only 20 percent. The regents have
proposed to raise this percentage to 25 for next year.
“They’re planning to raise fees again this time
around and they’re also planning to cut return-to-aid,”
Samaan said.
Return-to-aid refers to the percentage of student fee income
that is returned to benefit students through financial aid.
“They’re making you pay more and then they’re
taking away the amount of financial aid you can get. It’s
really putting a squeeze on a lot of students,” Samaan
said.
Students will also use the public comment period of the
regents’ meeting on both Wednesday and Thursday to add a
personal note to the discussion on fee increases and financial aid,
telling their own stories of how the regents’ decisions have
affected their lives.
“We definitely plan to make that part of our bringing (the
issue) to the table so that they are more fully informed of the
consequences of their actions,” Lilla said.
Students plan to push for a return to the 33 percent that has
been allotted to financial aid in previous years.
“This year they had the flexibility to go back up to 33
percent,” Lilla said. “But for whatever reason, the
budget has return-to-aid set at 25 percent.”
“They may see that as not being as significant change, but
it can really have dramatic effects,” she added.
Students plan to speak to the regents to make it clear to them
just how much a few percentage points can mean.
Some students will even have the opportunity to cross the
symbolic line that normally separates students from regents and
lobby them behind the scenes, Lilla said.
Fees and financial aid will be the primary focuses of most
students at the rallies this week, but not the only ones. Students
will also be advocating funding and support for outreach programs,
particularly student-initiated ones, said Eligio Martinez, the
Academic Affairs commissioner for USAC.
“The (Student Initiated Outreach) programs … encourage
students that aren’t going to go on to college to go on to
higher education,” Martinez said.
“The regents are going to be having basically a discussion
on outreach. They do realize that outreach programs are an
essential thing, but at the same time they don’t know much
about student-initiated outreach,” said John Vu, USAC
external vice president. “A lot of students are lobbying to
get the regents to really be educated on student-initiated
outreach.”
The students’ goals will be to get a commitment from the
regents for outreach funding and, ideally, to prevent further
increases in fees.
But they realize that it may not be feasible for the regents to
keep fees steady and hope instead to convince the regents to
postpone the decision until the state budget comes out in January,
Lilla said.
“A more realistic goal is to ask them to delay voting on
(the budget) until we have a better understanding of where the
state’s finance will be,” Lilla said.
“At the very least, they should postpone the vote until
the January budget comes out,” Samaan said.
“They’re just going to raise the fees without even
looking at the budget.”
Samaan added that the regents’ proposal to increase fees
and decrease financial aid before they know what the California
budget would look like for 2004-05 made him concerned that they
would not effectively advocate on behalf of students in
Sacramento.
And if the regents do vote to increase fees on Thursday,
students say they will continue to lobby against them.
“The regents should be clear that if they vote to increase
fees without even seeing the January budget, students are not going
to stop fighting,” said Alicia Schwartz, the assistant
organizing director for UCSA.
There will likely be more action than these planned
demonstrations and addresses.
“Anything else that happens will, I suspect, be
spontaneous,” Lilla said. “Rest assured that there is
going to be plenty of student activity.”
Though the students want to make their point forcibly, they
intend to keep it peaceful.
University police has stepped up security for the days that the
regents will be on campus, but they do not anticipate trouble.
“There’s no indication that this will get out of
hand,” said Sgt. Russell McKinney of the UC Police
Department.
“Everyone’s got the right to come and voice their
concerns, which is typically what happens at the regents’
meetings,” he added.
Based on past experiences, Lilla said she was optimistic about
the effect students can have on the regents’ decisions.
“The regents really do listen,” she said.