UC proposes steady tuition hikes – LA Times

• UC proposes steady tuition hikes – LA Times

  5% tuition increase at UC campuses exceeds the rate of inflation yet the state faces rising retirement/heathcare costs. You cannot fully fund pensions/healthcare and education. We need to educate the future to fund the retiring baby boomers. 

  tags: education learning major college employment tuition university debt student

  • For the first time in four years, UC leaders are proposing tuition hikes — as much as 5% in each of the next five years — to help cover rising costs and to expand the enrollment of California students.

  • undergraduates who are California residents, tuition next year could rise to $12,804, not including room, board and books. By the 2019-20 school year, that could increase to $15,564.

  • UC needs more money to help cover rising costs of retirement benefits, fund recent pay increases in employee contract settlements, hire more faculty and raise the number of California undergraduates by 5,000 over five years from the current 166,250, according to the proposal being formally released Thursday.

  • 
  • The proposed series of 5% increases "is the worst-case scenario for California students and their families, but it is a very predictable scenario," she said in an interview.

  • The proposal is sure to face some student opposition.

  • Including various campus charges, room, board and books, the annual cost of a UC education now can total more than $30,000 for California residents; the growing number of students from other states and nations pay about $23,000 on top of that.

  • The maximum 5% hikes would translate into somewhat larger dollar amounts in each subsequent year after 2015-16: $642, $672, $702 and $744.

  • And the state’s new Middle Class Scholarship program will provide some relief to families earning as much as $150,000 a year.

  • Still, UC officials say that the $2.64 billion in state general revenue funds for UC this year is $460 million below what it was seven years ago.

  • Many parents and state legislators are angry that UC has sharply boosted the number of out-of-state undergraduates — now about 20% of freshmen — for the extra tuition they pay

  • Graduate and professional school students face the 5% hikes too, and many of them would see even higher bills.

  • About 14,000 graduate students in more than 50 programs such as law, medicine, social work and business also must pay so-called professional degree supplemental tuitions that range from $4,000 to $38,500, and those would go up by as much as 5% annually as well. Some master’s programs in nursing would see a one-time 20% rise.

  • He said he expects a majority of regents will support the plan as long as the commitment to increase financial aid is kept.

  • "They want their degrees to mean something and we want to protect the quality of the education at the university."

  • She noted that the UC tuition next year will remain below that of such other top public research-oriented schools such as the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the University of Virginia and the University of Illinois.

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