UC and the State Budget

REGENTS REVIEW OPTIONS ON STUDENT FEES

The Regents of the University of California reviewed a variety of student fee proposals, aimed at reducing a proposed 40 percent fee increase for academic graduate students, at their March 17 meeting in San Francisco.

No action was taken. The Regents are expected to vote on student fee levels for the 2004-05 year later this spring, potentially at their May meeting, though the exact timing will depend upon the progress of state budget negotiations.

In his 2004-05 state budget proposal, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed UC fee increases of 10 percent ($498) for resident undergraduates and 40 percent ($2,088) for resident graduate academic students. Nonresident tuition also would increase 20 percent. Most professional school fees also would increase substantially; the proposal did not specify fee levels for these schools but proposed that state support for the schools be reduced by an average of 25 percent.

The proposed student fee increases are part of a series of budget cuts proposed for UC — including cuts in freshman enrollments, research, outreach, administration, and many other programs — to help address a major state budget deficit.

UC officials told the Regents that the University continues to make an aggressive case in Sacramento for strong state support of public higher education and against budget cuts.

"This is a university that truly touches every family in California," said UC President Robert C. Dynes. "But we are on the edge right now. A great public research university — in this case, the world's greatest public research university — cannot be sustained if it is made to absorb deep budget cuts year after year, with no end in sight."

Larry Hershman, UC vice president for budget, told the Regents that broad consultations in the University community have indicated that the 40 percent graduate fee increase is simply too high to continue attracting the world's brightest graduate students and to sustain the high-quality graduate programs that fuel California's economic growth.

Hershman said one option would be to increase undergraduate fees by a slightly higher amount — such as 13 percent or 15 percent — in order to lower the graduate fee increase to something more in the range of 20 percent to 25 percent.

Hershman also discussed a variety of ways in which professional school fee increases could be structured to achieve the level of savings assumed in the governor's budget. One option would be to adopt a uniform professional fee increase of roughly $4,850 for law, business, medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, pharmacy, optometry, and theater/film/television. Alternatively, different fee increases could be adopted for different schools.

The Regents did not express a preference for any specific fee options. Hershman said the discussion of options will continue with the Schwarzenegger administration, the Legislature, and the University community.

Background on the UC budget situation is at www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/budget .

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