CSU students argue against tuition hike
Proposal would add $270 per year for undergrads
California State University students are fighting a proposed 5 percent tuition increase for next fall which, if approved next week by the trustees, would be the first for CSU since 2011.
The proposal would add $270 to the undergraduate price and bring tuition to $5,472 a year. Graduate students would pay an additional $438 a year for an annual tuition of $7,176. This is the first year since 2011 that CSU can raise tuition under Gov. Jerry Brown’s multiyear funding plan for the university, which guaranteed funding increases of at least 4 percent from 2013 to 2017 if the trustees kept tuition flat.
Now, although the price hike might sound small, students
say it will be hard for those from families that earn too much to qualify for financial aid to pay for school on top of books and living costs.
So dozens of students demonstrated at San Francisco State on Wednesday, using their bodies to form the words “NO HIKES” on Malcolm X Plaza. Hundreds more lobbied in Sacramento this week to urge state lawmakers to give CSU an extra $168 million — above the $157 million Brown has recommended for the university — to close its shortfall. And busloads of students are expected to show up at CSU’s Long Beach headquarters next Wednesday to ask the trustees to vote no.
CSU leaders say that only 40 percent of the university’s 425,000 undergraduates on 23 campuses would have to pay the higher price. The rest, about 255,000, are covered through financial aid.
That leaves about 170,000 middle-class students who would have to pay it. And many of them — like Alison Sexson, 20, a junior majoring in political science and psychology at San Francisco State — say it will add to their student debt.
“I have about $20,000 in student loans this year,” Sexson said. If tuition goes up, “next year, it’ll probably have to be around $25,000. Even though the tuition increase doesn’t seem like that much, with the cost of housing and food going up, it’ll be necessary.”
Sexson and several other students active in student government set up a table outside the student union Wednesday to answer students’ questions about the tuition proposal. The free pizza didn’t hurt, and business was brisk.
“The more you pay, the longer you stay,” said Nathan Jones, 21, a sophomore majoring in business management who helped at the information table. “That’s because when students pay more, they often have to take another job and less (academic) units, so they’re not graduating as fast.” Jones, who works for the student government and in the recreation department, said he’ll have to take on a third job if the price rises. “Because I don’t want any more loans.”
Celia LoBuono Gonzalez, 24, a communications major, already works three jobs — as a caregiver, as a babysitter and with student government — and has been at San Francisco State for seven years. Although tuition had been stable, “it’s been difficult to find classes to get through my major” because San Francisco State doesn’t offer enough courses for the people who need them, she said.
Gonzalez joined about 300 other students, including Cal State East Bay graduate student David Lopez, president of the Cal State Student Association, on Monday and Tuesday to lobby state lawmakers.
“We made it very personal and told stories” of how price hikes affect students, said Lopez, adding that lawmakers declined to make any promises as they try to work out next year’s budget by the June 15 deadline and wrestle with uncertainties in federal funding to the state.
Next week, Lopez, Gonzalez and many others say they’ll charter buses to Long Beach to try to persuade the trustees to reject the tuition proposal.
CSU leaders unveiled it in January and said it would raise $77.5 million to eliminate nearly half of the anticipated $168 million shortfall in their 2017-18 budget.
CSU’s financial administrators Steve Relyea and Ryan Storm say in their tuition proposal that monthly studentloan payments would increase by $13 on average if the price goes up. Just less than half of CSU students graduate with loan debt that in 2013-14 averaged $14,388, they said.