Amid outrage, UC regents delay vote on tuition increase

Opportunity to push for more state funding

Amid fierce pushback from students, legislators and even Gov. Jerry Brown, University of California leaders decided Wednesday to postpone a vote to increase tuition for the 2018-19 school year.

“We should accept the invitation of the students who were with us this morning to fight together for funding for the University of California,” UC President Janet Napolitano said Wednesday during a meeting of the board of regents who oversee the system.

The regents had been slated to vote on increasing in-state tuition and fees by nearly $350 for the 201819 school year, raising total annual tuition to just shy of $13,000. The proposed increase for out-of-state students was even greater, nearly $1,000 to about $29,000.

But it was unclear the proposal had the support necessary to pass.

After hearing from scores of students in person and online that an increase would derail their college dreams, the regents voted to consider the tuition hike in March for out-of-state students and May for in-state students, instead.

The delay will give UC officials a chance to push state lawmakers to increase funding for UC in the 201819 budget.

The budget Brown recently proposed would allot around $34 million less than UC officials anticipated, and Napolitano has said the system needs the money to increase the number of in-state students.

“The need for funding is obvious,” she said.

But Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a UC regent who is also vying to succeed Brown as governor, and others had blasted the January vote as premature.

“For the UC to vote on tuition fees before Sacramento begins bud-

get discussions is strategically short-sighted,” Newsom said in a statement, “and once again, gives Sacramento a good reason to avoid addressing the state’s chronic under-funding of public higher education.”

Max Lubin, a first year master’s student at UC Berkeley and a founder of the student advocacy group

Rise California, agreed.

The state should devote more funding to higher education, Lubin said, but any decision to raise tuition before UC really has a chance to lobby the state for more money would be “irresponsible.”

It’s unclear Brown and lawmakers in Sacramento will be swayed by their pleas for more money, though, meaning there is still a real chance families will be paying more money to attend UC next school year.

Brown, who has repeatedly butted heads with Napolitano over the system’s spending habits, has blasted the idea of raising tuition and urged UC to be more innovative with delivering affordable college to the state’s young people. State funding for UC, he noted Wednesday ahead of the scheduled vote in a letter to the regents, has increased by $1.2 billion since 2012.

“Economic expansions do not last forever and the future

is uncertain,” Brown said. “More work is needed now to reduce the university’s costs to ensure that students and families have access to an affordable, quality education.”

But Napolitano has argued the state has left UC with little choice, as the system tries to increase the number of young people from California it educates.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ echoed Napolitano in a note to the campus community Wednesday supporting

the tuition increase, noting that many low-income students wouldn’t have to pay the increase because it would be covered by financial aid. In the last five years, she said, the school has added 4,700 students, with the cost of instruction outpacing funding.

“This is not only not sustainable,” Christ said, “it threatens our institution’s academic and research excellence.”

But if the tuition hikes are approved in March and May, they will be the second in as many years and students say the increase would force some students to choose between paying tuition and paying for necessities like food and housing.

“I think a vote to increase tuition is irresponsible at a time when we have tens of thousands of hungry and homeless students in the system,” Lubin, whose group launched earlier this school year to push for tui-

ition-free college, said.

The group collected more than 3,000 signatures ahead of the regents’ meeting from students across every UC campus opposing the tuition hike.

“Honestly I can barely afford to get food and toiletries for myself, so the hike in tuition will likely force me to not eat on certain days,” wrote a student from UC Santa Cruz named Fuey.

Around 30 students attended the meeting to call on regents to vote against the proposal, which Napolitano acknowledged.

“I think this will give us time to make our case to the legislature,” she said of the delayed vote. “It is just the beginning of the budget hearing process.”

For now, students like Lubin are grateful.

“We’re grateful to the UC regents for affording us more time to work together

in Sacramento to fully fund the UC and avert tuition hikes,” he said in an email after the decision. “We look forward to working together to advocate for the fully funded UC system that all Californians deserve.”