The California State University (CSU) Board of Trustees approved a 9 percent increase in student tuition for the 2012-13 academic year at its meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 16.
The tuition increase was proposed and passed as a safeguard for the CSU, if the $333 million state funding increase proposal is not approved by the state in January. If the state of California does approve additional funding for the CSU, students will not face the additional $498 in tuition, CSU assistant vice chancellor of budget Robert Turnage said during a conference call Tuesday.
“Our budget plan is saying to the governor, ‘Governor, we would like you to find a way to provide $498 from the state instead, and if you do that, we don’t have to implement this $498 increase,’” Turnage said.
Several trustees said, however, the idea of giving the governor a choice between charging students more or increasing state funding was a poor one.
Passing the tuition increase essentially gives government officials a way out, board member Bernadette Cheyn said during the Wednesday meeting.
“I believe that we should ask for what we need without disclaimers,” Cheyn said. “Let our elected officials take responsibility for their integrity or lack thereof, and let us not be implicit in compromising it by offering them a way out at the cost of our students.”
The tuition increase safeguard is necessary if the state does not approve the CSU’s proposed budget, Turnage said.
He also said a funding increase, whether from the state or out of students’ pockets, is necessary because most of the schools in the CSU have nearly exhausted their reserve funds and cannot continue offering the same amount of courses to so many students.
Even with tuition increases, the CSU has $410 billion less than four years ago.
Since 2008, when the CSU’s financial troubles began, schools have been cutting enrollment, implementing furloughs and cutting courses, all of which were wrong, Turnage said.
“We’ve had to make ends meet by doing things that are the wrong thing to do in the long run,” Turnage said. “We’re turning away CSU eligible students. That’s not something that we ought to be doing.”
The scarceness of funds has been evident across the CSU’s 23 campuses, with restricted enrollment, larger, impacted classes and strikes by the faculty over lack of salary increases.
The proper reaction to these cutbacks, though, is not to fight within the system but to take the fight to the California legislature, CSU media relations specialist Erik Fallis said in the Tuesday conference call.
“Channel that anger where it belongs, at the doorstep of Sacramento,” Fallis said. “The argument that we can all bring to Sacramento is that higher education is a priority.”
Some activism has already begun with the start of The Bucks Start Here Campaign. The campaign is an initiative by CSU student leaders to show Gov. Jerry Brown the value of higher education.
Sean Richards, vice president of the California State Student Association (CSSA), said students will be able to write a message to the governor on $650 million bills and put them in a fake ballot box that will be sent to the governor.
The idea started at San Diego State University, but the CSSA decided to expand it, taking the ballot box from campus to campus. It will come to Cal Poly on Jan. 23.
“We’re going to move that one single box like the Olympic torch up and down the state,” Richards said
Daniel Galvan, the chief of staff for CSSA, said he isn’t on board with the propositions on the table, either.
“The bottom line is that we need to put pressure on legislators to invest more in higher education,” Galvan said. “More than ever, these raises in tuition are affecting middle class. I hear people wondering what job they’re going to have to take on next to cover the next fee.”
Galvan’s said the bill is just a short-term solution.
“There’s no guarantee that there won’t be even more fees,” Galvan said. “And we, as students, can’t take on any more increases.”
CSSA created The Buck Starts Here Campaign to rally students against the fees.
CSSA hopes to deliver the box of grievances to Brown on March 5 as part of the March for Collaboration.
With the approval of the CSU’s state funding proposal and possible tuition increase, the issue is now going to Sacramento. Students will not find out until June or July whether or not they will be paying the additional $498 in tuition.
Victoria Billings and Parker Evans contributed to this article.