Plan OKd to Nearly Double CSU Fees by ’95

Moving toward a dramatically different method of charging students for the real cost of their educations, the Cal State University Board of Trustees decided Wednesday to raise annual undergraduate fees $480, or 36%, next fall.

This increase, bringing full-time undergraduate fees to $1,788 a year, is the first step in a formula that eventually will charge undergraduates for what the university says are the the actual costs of their education and bill taxpayers for the rest.

The plan, to be phased in over three years along with increased financial aid, would bring full-time undergraduate fees to about $2,540 by the 1995-96 school term, nearly double what they are now.

Cal State Chancellor Barry Munitz, who proposed the change, complained that there had been no logic to previous fee increases other than to plug the system’s budget shortfalls caused by shrinking tax support in the recession. “The hope is we can put a stable, predictable pattern in place instead of this random ad-hocracy,” he said.

Munitz conceded that a fixed formula could be difficult to maintain if legislators do not follow it and the California economy remains depressed. But he explained that he wanted to create an explicit social contract between the state and his 340,000 students, and then leave it up to Sacramento whether to follow or break the compact.

“It’s the best of a series of bad choices,” Munitz said at the trustees meeting in Long Beach. The governor and Legislature must approve his plan.

Students denounced the increase, saying that it would force thousands to drop out or to delay graduation because they must work more hours at jobs to afford school. “Basically, you are leaving us without a future,” Tammy Tatum, a San Diego State senior told the trustees.

In related action, Cal State trustees ended the practice of charging all students the same amounts and moved to bill graduate students significantly more than undergraduates. Basic fees for full-time graduate students in 1993-94 will be $2,146, or $716 higher than this year, although fees for students seeking a teaching credential will be the same $1,788 as for undergraduates.

The future rule of thumb will be to charge graduate students 150% of what undergraduates pay, according to Molly Corbett Broad, the Cal State system’s executive vice chancellor. The small seminars and more intensive laboratory work in masters’ degree courses drive costs up, and “we ought not to burden freshmen and sophomores with the price of graduate education,” she said. Under such a formula, graduate fees would be about $3,810 in 1995-96.

The Cal State actions, to be followed by a UC Board of Regents meeting Friday on fees, are moving California’s two public university systems away from their traditions of low cost and open doors to all qualified students. The UC Board of Regents is expected to raise basic undergraduate fees by $995, or 33%, next year, to $4,039, not including room and board.

(UC, which has nine campuses and 165,700 students, enrolls the top one-eighth of California high school students and has many doctoral and professional programs. Cal State’s 20 campuses enroll the top third of high school graduates and offers no independent doctorate or professional degrees.)

Under state policy, Cal State and UC students are supposed to only pay fees for services delivered outside the classroom and not tuition, which the state government has defined as funding instruction and professors’ salaries. That distinction will soon be abandoned, Cal State officials said.

“What is being proposed is a dramatic departure from what we’ve been doing in the past,” said R. J. Considine Jr., chairman of the trustees finance committee. “But what we’ve done in the past is not working.”

Surprisingly, the Cal State trustees’ actions Wednesday did not provoke a major protest by students, whose fees have doubled over four years and who have had thousands of courses canceled because of budget cuts. About 50 students attended the meeting and those who spoke did so more in quiet sadness than in loud anger.

For example, San Diego student Tatum dismissed the trustees’ pledge that a third of next year’s fee increases, or about $50 million, would go to extra financial aid. “The promises of the financial aid have never (materialized) in the past,” the 29-year-old geology major said.

Angelo Whitfield, president of the system’s student association, criticized Munitz’s plan as being based on shaky assumptions. Whitfield noted that it is contingent on increasing student financial aid and on persuading the Legislature and the governor to change eligibility rules. In addition, other states with percentage formulas for fees have abandoned them in fiscal emergencies, Whitfield said.

The gloomy discussions are framed by Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposed cuts in state support for the two university systems: a $67.7-million reduction, or 4.5%, for Cal State and a $138-million cut, or 7.3%, for UC. Wilson’s plan may prove to be optimistic by the time budget wrangling is over in Sacramento, educators fear.

As a result, UC is planning to reduce its enrollment by about 2,000 students and to temporarily reduce employees’ pay by 5%. With less of a cushion from private donations and research grants, Cal State already has suffered severe course cutbacks and layoffs of teachers in the last two years, causing an enrollment drop of about 22,000 students. Another 15,000 students could be squeezed out of Cal State if the governor’s budget passes and the proposed fee increases are not approved, officials warned Wednesday.

“California used to make budgets based on enrollments. Now the decline in enrollment is a direct result of budgets,” Cal State vice president Broad said.

According to a recent study by the California Postsecondary Education Commission, each Cal State undergraduate’s education costs the university $7,700. If students come to bear about a third of that, or $2,540, Cal State fees would be about the average of 15 other state universities with which it compares itself nationwide. However, Cal State students emphasize that living costs are higher here than in most other parts of the country.

Under the new fee schedule, part-time undergraduate students and students working toward a teaching credentials at Cal State would pay $1,032 next fall, up $344. Part-time graduate students would pay $1,242, or $414 more than this year. Cal State defines part-timers as those taking six or fewer credits.

State Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), a vocal critic of education policies, on Wednesday challenged the assumption of $7,700 base costs. If administrative costs were cut and waste reduced, students could avoid at least some of the fee increase, he said.