Cal State Fee Hike Creates Anger in O.C.

Student leaders at the region’s two Cal State campuses blasted the 36% increase in student fees approved by the system’s Board of Trustees Wednesday, predicting that a substantial number of students could be forced to drop out of school by the continuously escalating cost of higher education.

The vote will increase student fees by $480 next year, to $1,788, part of a planned three-year escalation of fees that will bring them to over $2,500 by 1995. Graduate students will pay even more.

“Students are the lowest ones on the totem pole,” 23-year-old Christy Halliday said dejectedly as she stood in the main quad at Cal State Fullerton Wednesday afternoon. “If the state is in such a crisis, how are they getting the funds (for construction)?” Halliday asked angrily as she glanced at a five-story building going up on campus nearby.

Halliday, a graduate student in communications, will be hit particularly hard by the increase, which still requires approval by the Legislature. Graduate student fees will rise by $716 next year.

“Where the heck am I supposed to come up with the money?” asked Cal State Fullerton student Krys Julien, as she stood on crutches outside the school library.

Julien, who has cerebral palsy, said that her fees are paid by the state Department of Rehabilitation, but fears that because that agency is also facing budget cuts, an increase in student fees may prevent her from returning to college next year.

“I still face open discrimination to get jobs,” Julien explained. “If I don’t have a college degree, I’ll be working at Carl’s Jr. for the rest of my life.”

Student leaders at Cal State Long Beach, which draws many students from Orange County, were even more vocal about the increases.

“They’re cutting off their foot by raising fees so much,” said Henry Funderburk, president of the student body at the Long Beach campus who predicted that the $480 proposed increase in student fees would prevent about 20% of Cal State Long Beach’s students from returning next year.

In a survey of Cal State Long Beach students conducted three weeks ago, 54% said they would be unable to return next year if fees increased by $600. Although the proposed increase is less than $600, Funderburk said he still expected that a large number of students would be forced to drop out.

But Dorothy Goldish, chairwoman of Long Beach’s Faculty Senate, said that without the increases in student fees, the quality of education at the campus could decline.

“Without an increase in student fees, we would have been forced to make substantial layoffs of tenure-track faculty,” Goldish said. Even with the fee hikes, she said, the faculty’s ability to offer classes will be limited to some degree.

But “it’s a sad thing,” she added. “Students are paying a great deal of money just to stay in place. They’re not even getting ahead.”

Dr. Jack Bedell, Cal State Fullerton’s associate vice president for academic affairs, predicted that the fee increases would cause a short-term drop in student enrollment but said that he was hopeful that increased financial aid would help students cope with growing costs.

“Even with the increases, it’s still a competitive rate for a great education,” Bedell said.

At Orange County’s community colleges, where many students are already struggling to make ends meet after large fee increases earlier this year, officials predicted that growing costs at Cal State and UC schools would cause a surge in enrollment at already overcrowded community colleges.

Lisa Thomas, a spokesperson for Golden West Community College in Huntington Beach, said she fears that the increase in students from Cal State and UC schools will create a logjam of students that will prevent the students most in need of classes from getting them. “The whole reason that community colleges are successful is because they’re affordable. With the increase in students here, the people who can’t pay are being forced out of the system,” Thomas said.

Angry Orange County students at Cal State campuses may soon be joined by their counterparts at UC Irvine, who are continuing their efforts to dissuade the UC regents from adopting a similar increase in student fees when they meet today in Riverside.

UC Irvine students are facing proposed additional fees of $995 a year--a 33% increase over last year. According to statistics compiled by the University of California Student Assn., UC student fees have increased 125% in the past four years.

UC Irvine junior Luis DiBernardo, expressed concern that the increases would have a detrimental impact on minority students from disadvantaged backgrounds. DiBernardo said he was particularly worried that another increase in student fees will force him to temporarily drop out of school.

“It’s questionable whether I’ll stay in school,” he said. “If the fees increase, I’ll have to use my summer-job money to pay for the increases. After that, I’ll have to drop out of school for a quarter to earn some more money. It’ll probably take me five years to graduate.”