Cal State Trustees Hike Fees for Fifth Straight Year

By Stuart Silverstein
Times Staff Writer

5:00 PM PDT, October 27, 2005

Despite the pleas of students who complained of financial hardship, trustees of the California State University system today approved fee increases of 8% for undergraduates and 10% for those in graduate programs.

The increases mean a fifth straight year of fee hikes for the 400,000 students in the 23-campus Cal State system, the nation's largest network of public universities. University of California regents are due to vote on similar fee increases next month.

Under the plan approved by the Cal State trustees, full-time undergraduate students who are California residents will pay $2,724 in systemwide fees next year, up from $2,520 this year. Combined with the additional fees imposed by individual campuses, undergraduates will pay an average of $3,368 next year, up from $3,164.

For graduate students, the 10% boost will bring systemwide fees up to $3,414, up from $3,102, not counting campus fees.

The fee increases were included in a $235-million request approved by the Cal State Board of Trustees for additional funding from the state Legislature.

The student fee increases are considered final, but they could be modified if state lawmakers provide more — or less — funding than expected under the state universities' long-term budget agreement with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Student activists who flocked to the university system's Long Beach headquarters for the trustees meeting complained that previous increases already have pushed some students to quit college.

Rex Richardson, study body president at Cal State Dominguez Hills, said that he has had to work so much to earn money for school that "I was spending more time at work, more hours, than I was studying. So I compromised the whole reason that I went to the university."

He warned trustees that pushing up fees would make school unaffordable for more students.

"CSU is the greatest university system in the nation, and it's going to endure," Richardson said.

He added, however, that the quality of the system means nothing "if you don't have access to it" because of its cost.

Josef Anolin, a student government vice president at San Francisco State, was not impressed by the plan to impose moderate, more predictable fee increases every year rather than the more volatile pattern of fee-setting that generally has prevailed since the early 1990s.

"Predictability for many students — particularly those who I consider my peers at San Francisco State — only means they'll know when they won't be able to afford a college education anymore," he said.

Anolin also said that students in expensive areas such as San Francisco face high living costs in addition to college fees. At the same time, he said, many students can't graduate as quickly as they would like because there is limited room in required classes.

Rebecca Balderas, a student leader at San Jose State, called student fee increases unfair because, unlike most taxes, they single out one group in society.

"They are targeted tax increases," she said. What's more, Balderas added, "students already know that they won't see the quality of their education improve even after paying that increased student fee."