Student coalition pushes for UC/CSU freeze

Deepti Arora
The Daily Californian
Nov 16, 2007

Students and their families took a step Wednesday toward increasing college affordability by filing California’s first student-led ballot initiative to freeze public university fees.

Led by Students and Families for Tuition Relief Now, students from 30 public campuses jointly filed a proposition with the state attorney general that, if approved, would freeze UC and CSU undergraduate student fees for the next five years. After that period, any fee increase would not be allowed to exceed the rate of inflation.

For the proposition to appear on the November 2008 statewide ballot, it needs 434,000 valid signatures from registered voters by mid-April.

The organization’s efforts stem from the sharp increase in college costs over the last decade. UC fees have nearly doubled in the last six years, with students paying $6,636 this year compared to $3,429 in 2001. Fees for CSU students have risen similarly since 2002, up 94 percent to $2,772 this year.

“The implications of this are really enormous,” said Jeremy Bearer-Friend, one of the campaign’s lead organizers. “This is a huge deterrence for people who don’t apply to college because they don’t think they can afford it.”

In order to make up for the loss of revenue for the UC and CSU systems that would result from freezing fees, the initiative proposes to levy a one percent tax on California citizens with incomes over $1 million.

“This is not really an imposition because the economic well-being of our state hinges on the quality of our workforce,” Bearer-Friend said. “There needs to be affordable higher education for us to have a higher-educated workforce down the line.”

According to a 2007 report released by the U.S. Department of Education, higher tuition rates strongly discourage low-income and minority students from applying to public universities. The report states that financial obstacles stopped as many as 1.6 million U.S. students from attending a four-year college in the 1990s, and is likely to prevent 2.4 million students from receiving a bachelor’s degree this decade.

Hilda Morales, one of UC Berkeley’s key organizers for the initiative, said the financial burdens posed by fee increases are difficult to balance with involvement in college life.

“I can either work enough hours to make rent or get deeply involved in my community and be homeless,” she said.

Bearer-Friend said if the proposition makes it to the ballot, there will unusually high turnout among young voters.

“There is so much energy going into the November ’08 election,” he said. “Young people are the age demographic least likely to vote, so a lot of people are looking at young people as the ones that will make or break this bill.”

Ben Allen, student regent on the UC Board of Regents, said Tuition Relief Now’s approach varies from other propositions.

“The whole state financing situation is so difficult,” he said. “Many students look at this kind of measure as the only way to force the university to rethink its fee policy.”

Contact Deepti Arora at darora@dailycal.org.