UC Berkeley students stage sleep-in over tuition hike; regents vote today

UC Berkeley students staged a sit-in overnight to protest a proposed tuition hike of up to 5% a year over the next five years. The controversial increase got the approval of a key UC committee on Wednesday and is expected to be approved today by the full board of regents.

Students began trickling into Wheeler Hall about 7 p.m. Wednesday. At one point, 200 students were peacefully protesting inside the building, campus police Lt. Marc DeCoulode said.

They remained inside the building overnight after it closed.

Using the hashtags #fightthehike and #OccupyWheeler, students tweeted photos showing protesters packed inside Wheeler Hall.

Student Tiffany Kim tweeted “times like this make me so grateful I chose this school. fight the tuition hike.”

“To occupy the auditorium or not, that is the question,” Lorenzo Galdón Ramos tweeted.

On Wednesday, protests at UC San Francisco, where the committee vote took place, turned chaotic.

One man was arrested after demonstrators forced their way through barricades and police security lines and a large glass door shattered. An 89-year-old former chancellor said he was knocked down and cut his hand as he tried to enter the building.

On Thursday, however, the crowd at UC Berkeley began dwindling as students prepared to head to class or geared up to attend the UC regents meeting today, he said.

The full board of regents is expected to support the increase, which was approved Wednesday despite opposition from Gov. Jerry Brown.

The increase would end a three-year freeze on tuition and possibly increase it by a cumulative 28% by 2019.

For breaking news in California, follow @VeronicaRochaLA She can be reached at veronica.rocha@latimes.com.