UC Proposes 10% Student Fee Hike

Undergraduate student fees at the University of California would go up nearly 10% next year--to $4,536 a year for California residents--under the terms of a 1997-98 budget recommendation unveiled Thursday by UC officials.

During the past two years, similar proposed fee increases have been avoided when Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature provided extra funding to “buy them out.” But UC officials said that, if similar funds are made available this year, they hope to spend them on other things besides keeping fees down.

“Our proposal would be to buy out some of the fees,” UC budget director Larry Hershman told the university’s Board of Regents at a monthly meeting in San Francisco. “But we’ve got some other priorities, too.”

UC President Richard C. Atkinson concurred, saying that if lawmakers come up with more money than UC has requested, he would like some of it spent on raises to make faculty salaries more competitive with other institutions.

“If I had my druthers, I would probably [still] ask for a modest fee increase--more like 3% to 3.5%,” Atkinson said. He called the politics of student fees “very emotional,” however, and declined to predict whether he would get his way.

“If you buy out half the fee increase, you’re still probably going to end up with almost the same level of emotion and distress if you buy out none,” he said. “So where the governor and the Legislature will go on this, I don’t know.”

The proposed budget, which follows the terms set out in Wilson’s four-year “compact” with higher education, seeks a 4% increase in state funding over the previous year, bringing total state support to $2.04 billion. It includes funding for an average 5% raise for faculty members, plus merit raises for deserving professors.

The budget has to be approved by both the Legislature and the governor.

Hershman said faculty members--who went without cost-of-living raises in 1991, 1992 and 1993--deserve salary hikes because they are working harder than ever. Since 1990-91, faculty teaching loads have increased by almost 7%, he said, while the student-to-professor ratio at UC has risen to a high of 18.7 to 1.

“We’re essentially the worst in the number of faculty we provide per student. The worst!” Hershman said, noting that student-to-faculty ratios at comparable private institutions average 10.1 to 1 and comparable public universities are at 17.8 to 1.

“That’s why maintaining competitive salaries is so important.”

Hershman said this budget proposal does not ask for all the money the system really needs, providing no funds, for instance, for deferred maintenance--the repair of existing infrastructure such as leaky roofs and frayed wiring. If lawmakers find additional money for UC, he said, he hoped $7.5 million might be earmarked for this purpose.

In a departure from the norm, UC officials this year broke their proposed student fee increase into two pieces--a $330 general increase and a $40 instructional technology fee. The latter fee, a new invention, is designed to help pay for the expanded use of technology in the classroom--and there was no talk of getting state “buyout” funds to reduce it.

In UC budget documents made public Thursday, officials estimated that the university system would need $33 million more from the state in order to avoid the $330-per-student general increase.

The budget also recommended a $590 increase for out-of-state students, bringing total fees for non-California residents to about $13,500-a-year.

Student Regent Jess Bravin was the only regent other than state Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin to protest the proposed fee hikes Thursday. He said the university ought to initially seek full funding from the state and only agree to fee hikes if the governor denies that request.

“I think there is a misjudgment when the university agrees to do the dirty work for politicians in Sacramento,” said Bravin, who said the proposed fee increase was four times higher than the rate of inflation. “By building into the budget the political cover for people in Sacramento, you are undercutting the status of the public.”

Hershman told Bravin that he disagreed for strategic reasons.

“In my 29 years doing budgets for UC, we have never asked the state for all of our needs,” he said. “That’s not something that yields results.”