ORANGE COUNTY VOICES : Lowering the Boom on Higher Education

Fee increases on top of fee increases at Cal State and UC campuses will cost society even more than it will students.

Higher education is suffering and the victims are the students.

While students in the California State University system still feel the crunch from this year’s 20% fee increase, what does Gov. Pete Wilson do? He proposes an additional 40% increase in student fees in the fall.

The University of California did not have much luck either. A 24% increase in fees was recommended, which would raise the cost for students to more than $3,000 a year. CSU students will pay about $1,300 for the next school year.

Last October the CSU Board of Trustees approved a request to the governor for a 7% increase over the 1991-92 state allocations. This increase was called a “survival budget” by Chancellor Barry Munitz, who told trustees the 20 state campuses require substantial additional funding if they are to continue to offer quality education to their 370,000 students.

Yet, the governor’s budget proposed a mere 1.1% increase from last year--barely enough money to keep the CSU’s head above water.

It provides no money to faculty for raises and no money toward the restoration of nearly 4,000 classes that were eliminated last fall on state campuses. (The UC system received money for routine pay increases, but not for cost-of-living raises for staff or faculty.)

Wilson’s CSU proposal was then handed off to the Board of Trustees for deliberation.

During their meetings last fall, when they were preparing their request, board members discussed the consequences of the budget. They concluded that the quality of education was in danger.

At that time, Munitz and CSU Board Chairman William Campbell attempted to raise public awareness about the CSU’s financial crisis. In fact, at the end of October, their budget proposal included a 7% decrease in student fees.

“It does us no good if we raise fees to any level and all that happens is that the state makes a comparable deduction to what it would have allocated to us,” Munitz said.

So what happened next?

The Board of Trustees overwhelmingly voted last month to support the governor’s 40% fee hike.

“We need that $372 to deliver what the student wants,” Munitz said.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chancellor, for your support.

Today the CSU Board of Trustees finance committee meets in Long Beach to vote on that 40% fee hike.

Soon after the CSU trustees’ vote last month on the fee increase, the UC Board of Regents approved a 24% increase in their student fees. Upon hearing that decision, 300 students at UC Davis occupied the building where the regents held their meeting. Five students were arrested.

Action such as that may not be the answer. But some strong student reaction can be anticipated if the CSU continues to push fees beyond the reach of many students.

The payment supervisor at Cal State Fullerton recently said that students are “fine” and don’t have problems with increases anymore. In fact, one student even said it really didn’t affect her. Instead, it affected her parents.

This numbing acceptance is wrong, regardless of whether you are a parent or student. We can’t just sit back and accept the largest dollar increase in fees in the Cal State system’s history.

Although Munitz vowed to step up financial aid for students who cannot afford higher fees, state officials and students are still worried that continual fee hikes will drive away middle-income students.

The president of the UC Student Assn. warned that fee increases could endanger the access that has long been the hallmark of higher education in California.

Someone must protect the vision and the promise made by the founders of the CSU and UC system--a promise of higher education.

The CSU alone is the largest system of senior higher education in the United States. The campuses are “dedicated to academic excellence, educational equity and public service.”

That promise, however, is slowly being lost.

It is obvious that the trustees and regents are not helping the student.

Agreed, times are tough. Wilson said his budget proposal was aimed at benefiting education. However, he allocated only enough money to keep the CSU and UC system alive while proposing an increase in fees, leaving the student as the fall guy, once again.

In the past two years, CSU fees have increased more than $500. (UC students will pay $1,200 more than they did two years ago.) With students, on the average, taking more than four years to graduate, one can see how expensive higher education is getting.

Trustees and state officials argue that fees are still below the average of fees charged by other comparable universities around the nation.

“California State University and the University of California are still incredible bargains,” Gov. Wilson said.

But by continuously proposing fee hikes, the governor may soon find that our coveted system may not be such a bargain.

Wilson had the chance to help students but he failed. He vetoed a bill last October that would have allocated $43 million to the Cal State system. That bill (SB 976), if passed, would have provided more than $32 million to fund additional classes. The remaining money would have been used to offset fall fee increases by rolling back 10% of student fees for the 1992 spring semester.

A spokesman for the governor said Wilson vetoed the bill because it would have been irresponsible to spend the money immediately. The money was obtained from a $180-million antitrust lawsuit settlement against four major oil companies. Instead, Wilson decided it would be better to let the money sit in the state’s reserve fund as a protection against the threat of recession.

Well, we are in a recession and students are tired of being kicked while they are down. These increases are too much, too fast. If the governor really wanted to benefit education, then he should have passed SB 976 and given us the money needed for a proper public education.

Overall, the entire system continues to become increasingly disillusioning each year.

At Cal State Fullerton, an estimated 200 classes were cut in the fall and the university elected not to renew the contracts of nearly 300 professors. About 200 more classes will be cut for the spring semester, university officials said.

Slashing courses and laying off faculty does not make for a better education. There is now talk statewide of CSU student groups staging a protest in Sacramento. What the future holds in the way of student protests will depend greatly on what the trustees’ finance committee decides to do today in Long Beach.

Cutting education is not beneficial to the state or the nation. Adequately funding education can only make our nation better.

If students pay more, they should get more. And, the bottom line right now is that students are getting nothing.