California State University Officials Approve 5% Tuition Hike

By Stephanie Minasian
Staff Writer | 0 comments


A 5% student tuition increase for the spring semester was approved by the California State University Board of Trustees at a meeting on Wednesday, but will be contingent on if voters fail to pass Governor Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30 tax-initiative to fund public education.
The CSU’s Committee on Finance approved the tuition hike 11-3, which will add $150 per semester for full-time undergraduates. If Proposition 30 is passed in the November election, the hike would not go forward, officials said.

“It is clear that we cannot simply cut our way out of another $250 million hit to our budget,” said CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed in a statement on the CSU website. “We need to take a balanced approach in terms of cost reductions and revenue enhancements. That is reflected in the contingency plans going before the board.”

The committee also voted to repeal a 9% tuition hike that is already into place, if voters pass the tax initiative. This would mean that students would be reimbursed by $250 for the fall 2011 semester.

If voters don’t pass the initiative, the 23-campus university system will face a $250 million mid-year “trigger” cut — on top of the CSU’s $16 billion deficit. If the trigger gets pulled, the system will have lost nearly $1.2 billion — or 39% — of its state support since 2007.

The worst-case scenario also could mean a reduction of 20,000 students or a fee increase across the board, Reed said.

Whether or not voters pass Prop. 30, Reed noted that the committee has voted to devise a plan to raise certain student fees, although the committee said they would wait until November to make a decision. The increases would begin in the 2013-2014 school year, and could generate up to $35 million per year.

Those potential fee increases could hit the graduation incentive fee, which would require seniors who have earned 150 semester units or more to pay an additional cost per unit equal to that paid by nonresident students; a course repeat fee, which would require students repeating a class to pay a repeat fee of $100 per unit; and an extra unit tuition fee that requires students to pay $200 per semester for any course load of 17 or more units.

For more information about the cuts, visit www.calstate.edu.

Via Gazettes.com