Correction appended
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill last week that would
have capped tuition increases for public universities.
Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill in compliance with the terms of
his higher education funding agreement with California universities
which calls for fee increases averaging about 10 percent a year.
Under the provisions of the bill, undergraduate fee increases for
California public universities would have been limited to no more
than eight percent in any year.
Authored by Assemblywoman Carol Liu, D-La Cañada
Flintridge, chairwoman of the Assembly Higher Education Committee,
the bill aimed to create a student-fee policy that would reduce fee
increases and create predictable tuition rates for students.
The veto may force the state to “deny access to higher
education for all but the wealthiest Californians,” Liu said
in a statement.
The bill would have capped annual student fee increases at eight
percent during fiscal emergencies, like this year. Also under the
bill, UC student fees would have been capped at 40 percent of the
total cost of their education while CSU student fees would have
been capped at 30 percent.
According to the bill, in non-emergency years, annual increases
in student fees would have been calculated based on changes in per
capita income. These increases would have equaled one or two
percent a year said Bruce Hamlett, chief consultant for the Higher
Education Committee.
“In the past three or four years we’ve been
balancing the costs of the higher education on the backs of the
students. That’s not good policy,” Hamlett said.
“College should be affordable. Tuition should go up in a
gradual, moderate, predictable way,” Hamlett added.
In his veto statement, Schwarzenegger said he cannot sign the
bill because it is “inconsistent with the student fee policy
provisions of the Higher Education Compact that I reached with the
University of California and the California State University
systems.”
State universities entered into the compact with the governor
last May in order to relieve further state budget cuts. The compact
provides an outline of state funding levels up to the 2010-2011
fiscal year.
Under the compact, the UC will absorb about $372 million in
budget cuts in exchange for an assurance that funding will increase
in the 2005-2006 academic year.
Undergraduate fees will also be increased by 14 percent in
2004-2005 fiscal year and 8 percent in the next two years. Fees
would go up no more than 10 percent per year in the long term.
Liu has criticized the compact’s proposed fee increases.
In a statement, she said the deal denies access to qualified
students and “does nothing to ensure that students from low
income backgrounds can afford to attend college.”
Yet others have praised the compact as a difficult but much
needed solution to the financial problems of the state.
“After years of deep budget cuts with no end in sight,
this compact brings the promise of renewed fiscal stability for
public universities in California,” UC President Robert Dynes
said last May.
Though many students are fighting for a decrease in fees,
second-year computer science and engineering student Samuel Kwok
said the bill would have been too limiting for the university
during tough financial times. He added that if the school needs
more money, it should be able to raise fees until it is on more
stable financial footing.
“If a temporarily larger increase helps, I guess
it’s OK as long as the rate comes back down,” Kwok
said.
Correction: Monday, October 4,
2004
In “Governor votes against tuition cap,” (News, Oct.
1), the headline should have specified that the governor vetoed the
fee cap.