More Fee Hikes Planned for State’s Colleges : Education: UC and Cal State systems are also looking at overhauling policies. Critics urge changes based on something other than budget emergencies.

In what have become annual exercises in pain and controversy, the governing boards of California’s two public university systems are planning to substantially raise student fees next week. The University of California is expected to propose today about $400 in hikes, bringing the total increase to nearly $1,000 next fall.

Critics in academia, the Legislature and think tanks complain that fee hikes in the University of California and California State University systems have become frantic, last-minute attempts to plug recession-ravaged budgets. They say there has been nothing logical or predictable about the sharp fee increases instituted since 1990.

The schools, having apparently abandoned the promise of low-cost education for all qualified Californians, are being urged to overhaul fee policies, basing them on something more coherent than yearly emergencies.

“We have to bite the bullet and say what is the appropriate share students should pay for their education and build in adequate financial aid,” said Bruce Hamlett, an official of the California Postsecondary Education Commission, a state agency studying the issue.

One idea is to set fees at a fixed percentage of what it costs the state to educate a student; with more aid provided to the needy. Another is to tie UC and Cal State fees to the average fees at comparable public universities in other states. A third is to establish a sliding scale of fees linked to students’ family incomes.

“We need a more stable policy so we can respond (to fiscal crises) in a way that is not total chaos, not jacking the students from one end of the yo-yo to the other,” said Chancellor Barry Munitz, head of the 20-campus Cal State system, which has about 340,000 students. Subsidies for all, including the affluent, “was a delightful policy, but I don’t think we can do it any more,” he added.

Although declining to reveal details, Munitz said he probably will ask that Cal State fees become a fixed share of the so-called real cost of instruction and that aid be boosted. Munitz will present his plan to the Cal State Board of Trustees Wednesday.

Each Cal State student’s education costs the university $7,700, according to the post-secondary commission. Under one plan, students would pay 30% and taxpayers the rest. Fees for an in-state undergraduate without scholarships would rise to $2,310 from $1,308, excluding books, room and board. The plan presumably would be phased in over three years.

Seventeen states use such formulas, charging students between 20% and 35% of costs. “They do provide predictability up to a point,” said Robert Sweeney, an analyst at the American Assn. of State Colleges and Universities, a Washington-based organization. “But if the states are short of cash, the formulas are not binding.”

Virginia guidelines suggest that state universities charge students 25% of their education’s true cost, with taxpayers paying 75%. But “that’s all gone to hell since we’ve had three years of budget reductions,” said Larry Hincker, a Virginia Tech spokesman. Basic costs to in-staters total $3,538 a year, or 38% of Virginia Tech costs.

According to a 1985 law, UC and Cal State were supposed to limit annual fee increases to 10%. But as the recession shriveled tax revenues, the Legislature and university governing boards have voted repeatedly to override the limits using a loophole for emergencies. So, fees have doubled in both systems over the past few years.

The UC Board of Regents are to vote next Friday on the budget plan being released today. Now, California undergraduates pay $2,824 in annual UC basic fees. The regents have approved a $605 hike for next fall. But with further cuts in tax support, another $400--or a $1,000 total increase--is likely.

“All of us are extremely concerned about the continual raising of fees,” said Meredith Khachigian, regents chairwoman. “It’s been very reactionary (to events) rather than being able to plan ahead. So I would assume that there would be a lot of interest in a mechanism that allows for a gradual raising.” But any change would take at least a year to implement on the nine-campus, 150,000-student UC system, she said.

It costs the UC system about $12,700 a year to educate an undergraduate, the post-secondary commission reported. At a 30% share, students would pay $3,810, or just about what they will be expected to pay next year anyway.

Khachigian said the UC system informally strives to keep fees close to those at four comparable schools: University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, University of Virginia, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and State University of New York at Buffalo. Their average fees are $3,849, again about what UC fees are likely to be after the $1,000 increase.

The commission warns that students could be scared away by “sticker shock” if fees are linked to other states or fixed percentages. Young people may “incorrectly determine that higher education is beyond their economic means” without applying for aid, the agency added. To limit such uncertainties, state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) has proposed a sliding scale tied to family income. “The present system was designed to generate a sufficient amount of money while protecting the poor and middle class,” Hayden said. “But it’s not working anymore.”

Under Hayden’s plan, students with an annual family income between $100,000 and $200,000 would pay 150% of usual fees, and wealthier students would pay double the regular charge. Middle- and low-income students would pay less.

Some analysts worry that a sliding scale could exacerbate social and class divisions, making it obvious that wealthy students subsidize poorer ones. But Sean Cartwright, a UCLA student body official, said a sliding scale is appealing because financial aid would be built in. “Everyone would know what they are going to pay,” he said, “and what they are going to pay is what they can pay.”