UC Likely to Toughen Rules on Fees for Non-Residents

The University of California is making it harder for out-of-state students to qualify for the much-lower fees that California residents pay for a UC education, under a policy change approved Thursday by a committee of the Board of Regents.

Beginning in the fall of 1993, most new non-California undergraduates must have three years of residency to qualify for the fees that residents pay. It now takes one year.

The regents backed away from a proposal to begin the stiffer requirement for all new undergraduates who enroll this fall. The change was delayed to help this year’s incoming freshmen from other states, who were recruited with the expectation of quickly qualifying for the lower fees.

Undergraduates from California in 1992-93 will pay, on average, $3,036 in annual fees, not including room and board, compared to $10,735 for out-of-state students. With about 8% of new undergraduates coming from outside California, UC administrators estimate that the tighter residency rules will eventually generate at least an extra $6 million a year.

The new rules were approved unanimously by the regents’ Finance Committee. The full Board of Regents is expected to adopt them today.

William R. Frazer, UC senior vice president for academic affairs, said the new rules are needed to help ameliorate the budget crisis the university and state government face. He said that non-California UC students as a group are better able to afford higher fees, citing a study that showed their parents’ incomes average $86,000, compared to $62,000 for in-state UC families.

Student leaders contended that the policy will raise little money because it discourages out-of-state applicants, which could hurt intellectual vitality and campus life.

“For the same reasons we try to lure away faculty from Harvard, Stanford and Yale, we also need to lure away their students,” said Tobin Freid, a UC Santa Cruz student who heads a systemwide UC Student Assn. committee on fees and financial aid. The current rules on residency also allow for greater diversity among students, she added.

Recently, a UC official joked that any student who could not figure out how to qualify for in-state fees after a year does not belong in the school system. Usually, it was done by opening a California bank account and registering to vote here.

Under the new residency rules, unmarried undergraduates will have to be financially independent of their parents for at least two years and not claimed by them as a tax exemption. Students also would have to have earned at least $4,000 a year for those two years. It would generally take another full year to establish residency and apply for the lower fees. (Out-of-state graduate students and married students will need to prove only one year of financial independence.)

In other action Thursday, regents’ committees adopted policies that officials contend will lead to more openness about salaries and benefits for top UC administrators. The actions came as a result of the publicity nightmare surrounding UC President David P. Gardner’s large retirement package, parts of which were approved in a closed-door meeting in March.

In a speech criticizing past practices, regent Frank W. Clark, a Los Angeles attorney, urged fellow board members to restore public confidence in UC by working in “scrupulous good faith and unreserved candor.” He implied that regents have abdicated too much power to UC staffers.

The new policies would require decisions about executive compensation to be debated publicly or to be reported “fully and clearly” after any private discussions. Similarly, any actions on perquisites, such as housing aid, would have to be made by the full board, not by committee chairmen, as now allowed.

Regent Jeremiah F. Hallisey, who has been very critical of Gardner’s package and its handling by regents, said he wondered whether the new policies are “cosmetic or a genuine commitment.”