On July 18, the UC Board of Regents voted to raise the supplemental tuition for most of its graduate school programs by as much as 35 percent.
Taking the brunt of the measure will be the UC system’s four nursing school programs, which will all see tuition increases of 35 percent.
Most of the other programs should face a roughly 10 percent increase, which could amount to $1,500 for some of the more costly programs that the system has to offer.
Some are already re-evaluating future plans in the wake of the news.
“I was strongly considering getting my MBA from a UC,” said Sunny Wong, a recent UC Santa Barbara graduate. “Now I’m leaning toward working a few years to pay back my undergraduate loans first.”
The decisions were granted as requests by the professional programs to either raise their current fee or implement a fee when no fee had previously been required. The fees will be implemented as early as this year, but some programs may see gradual increases annually until 2015.
Student Regent Jonathan Stein and Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom voted in opposition of the hike with the remainder of the board voting in favor.
At the same meeting, the UC Board of Regents decided to freeze the cost of tuition for undergraduates for the time being, as long as Proposition 30 passes.
Though Stein has expressed enthusiasm for the undergraduate tuition freeze, his feelings aren’t the same for the graduate school situation.
“How can we expect people to be a public defender or work for the government with a debt load of $150,000?” he said in a July 19 article in the San Francisco Chronicle. “I just don’t understand that.”
Nevertheless, the initiatives have passed and the effects will soon be felt. Undergraduates will be getting a little room to breathe for the time being; however, the respite may be short-lived.
“This is a matter of all hands on deck. Let’s pull together for the university and for our country,” Gov. Jerry Brown said at a surprise appearance at a meeting following the Board of Regents meeting.
ANDREW POH can be reached at city@theaggie.org.
Great job linking to an article behind a paywall. I’m sorry, most students can’t afford a subscription to the Wall Street Journal.
Even if part of the funds do go to securing public employee retirements, that prevents additional programmatic cuts and fee hikes for students around the state.
Prop 30 progressively raises taxes on households making more than $500,000 a year, as well as a slight increase in the sales tax, and will provide much needed revenue for our state. The detractors, who attack with comments on pensions or waste, aren’t interested in supporting any budget solutions that will truly benefit students in California.
Unfortunately, Prop 30 won’t actually send money to schools. According to the Wall Street Journal, “About half of all new revenues will actually go to teachers’ pensions…any new revenues that flow to school districts will actually end up in the teachers’ retirement fund. The rest of the revenues raised by the tax hike, by the way, will go toward paying for state employees’ pensions and retiree health benefits, which this year cost taxpayers about $5 billion.”
So honestly, even if it does pass I don’t think that the regents will stick to their “no tuition hikes” promise. It wouldn’t be the first time they had lied to us.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303404704577309651936695384.html