UC Fee Hike Meets Little Protest at S.D. Campus : Education: Students appear quietly accepting of Board of Regents’ plan to raise fees by $605 next year.

As all University of California campuses received a financial drubbing this week, UC San Diego students on Friday seemed quietly accepting.

The UC Board of Regents, amid protesters and hecklers from Northern California campuses, this week approved an annual fee increase of $605 for next year. The regents met on UC San Francisco’s Laurel Heights campus.

But by Friday evening, Perry Do, a UC San Diego sophomore majoring in economics, had yet to hear of the 20% fee hike that will bring registration costs for undergraduate California residents to about $3,650 for the 1993-94 school year.

His reaction when told of the Regents’ vote was matter-of-fact.

“I am sure they did,” Do said. “They always are.”

Do had a vague idea that the fees were going to continue to increase, but the severity of the hike still surprised him given cutbacks in student services and a dwindling number of faculty.

“That is ridiculous,” Do said. “How can they go up so much? They can keep raising fees, and still give us less and less?”

The sentiment was repeated often by students who entered the UC system over the last few years. With the new increase, fees will have gone up 105% since 1990. Still, some say the level of campus outrage has been barely perceptible.

“This is not the most active school,” said Jamie Shluker, 19, a junior in the political science department. “There have been no big rallies. We are apathetic. Plus it is harder for someone like me to understand what the fee hike means. My parents are putting me through school.”

Bathsheba Fulton, a 20-year-old junior majoring in history also said campus activism may be squelched by a higher concentration of students from more affluent families.

“I would be more upset if I were paying for it myself,” Fulton said. “Plus, I think we all kind of feel helpless.”

UC President Jack W. Peltason warned Friday that fees are likely to go even higher before next September because of depressed state revenues.

Johannah Fichtenberg, 20, a junior in the history department, said although there hasn’t been much protest activity on campus, a growing feeling of dissatisfaction has built and many fear the quality of education has deteriorated.

“There are fewer teaching assistants, and they are taking on more work,” Fichtenberg said. “I know they feel overworked, and they don’t have as much time to go over your work with you.”

Although little activity took place Friday in protest of the fee hikes, graduate students picketed earlier this week on campus in support of a unionizing movement begun at UC Berkeley. A graduate students strike there shut down about two-thirds of the classes Thursday and Friday.