In the wake of California’s deepening financial crisis and the $300 million cut from the CSU budget last year alone, Cal Poly administrators and deans of the university’s various colleges are proposing another increase in student fees beginning in spring of 2009.
The suggested increases, which are currently only in discussion, would impact Cal Poly students’ college-based fees (CBFs). These fees, as opposed to state university and activity fees, are intended to go toward the needs of each college as designated by the deans.
Generally, CBFs go toward items students derive immediate benefit from: paying professors’ salaries, funding a wider variety of classes, buying equipment for laboratories, setting up undergraduate research experiences and other specific instructional needs.
According to Provost Robert Koob, each college dean sent him a proposal for a $300 increase in CBFs per quarter. He forwarded the proposal to President Warren Baker who Koob said will likely modify it before sending it the College Fee Advisory Committee (CFAC) for approval later this week.
If the fees increase, which may ultimately range from $100 to $300 per student, per quarter, is approved by CFAC, students could see the impact as soon as this spring. If the proposal fails, however, the impact on students and the university as a whole could be even more dramatic.
“The first step here is to find out if the students think that this kind of curriculum, and the kind of place Cal Poly is, is something they value and want to see continue,” Koob said. “If the answer is yes, then they want to pay the (increase in the) fee. If the answer is ‘no, we think you’re fat, sloppy and lazy and we think you could cut services somehow,’ then we’ll cut the services and try to see where the proper balance is.”
Less money for the individual colleges translates to less instructors and class sections available to students, as well as less equipment and resources. This includes a decrease in the amount of part-time lecturers hired to teach the lower-level curriculum, meaning each college would have to cut many upper division electives as full-time professors are stretched to cover the basic courses required for graduation.
“These things just evolve,” Koob said. “People look at their budgets and what’s going on in the state and they say what are we going to do? Are we going to cut classes, are we going to ask students for more fees or are we going to shrink the university. I think the first choice was that we’d like to preserve Cal Poly as much as we can, so let’s ask the students for fee increases. If the students turn us down, then we’ll go to the next steps: fewer classes available – whatever it may be.”
Pending Baker’s approval, the deans’ proposal will go before CFAC on Thursday. While Associated Students Inc. president and CFAC co-Chair Angela Kramer said she agrees fees must go up to a certain extent, she remains skeptical of the suggested $300 per quarter increase.
“I made it very clear to the deans and the administrators that I thought that dollar amount was way too high,” Kramer said. “It would end up costing students an extra $5,000 to get a four-year education for nothing more than they’re getting now. It’s not like we’re adding additional programs, we’re simply filling the holes.”
“We cannot put the weight of Cal Poly’s deficit or the deficit of the CSU (system) on the backs of the students – which is absolutely, without a doubt, what we’re doing,” she said.
According to Kramer, CBF fees must increase, at least, to meet inflation, but each college must reevaluate their programs and become more efficient. She added that she is prepared to reject any proposal sent to CFAC that lacks transparency as to where the extra money will go.
“Fee increases are a really big deal and I think we, as students, need to ask questions,” she said.
“I’m not against all fee increases; I definitely think we need to pay our share. However, the CSU is not about education for those who can afford it, it’s about access to education for all Californians.”
According to Director of Budget and Analytic Business Services Debbie Brothwell, if the proposal is approved, CBFs would account for approximately 21 percent of a student’s total annual fees, more than double what students paid in 2008.
Brothwell added that as college fees increase, so does an individual’s eligibility for financial aid. However, amid concerns that the California may soon be broke, this fact is not as reassuring.
CBFs are unique to Cal Poly, by far the most expensive university in the CSU system, and were implemented in March 2003 after 61.5 percent of student voters passed the CBF initiative the previous year.
At the time, then-Gov. Gray Davis had approved a $125 million cut in CSU funding. Faced with a similar situation once again, CFAC will have to decide to approve the increases outright, or consult the student body in a special referendum.
The CFAC hearing on the proposal will be held Thursday at 11 a.m. in the president’s conference room on the fourth floor of the University Union building and is open to all interested students.