When I first heard that UC students were protesting tuition increases, I rolled my eyes. Then, I saw the increase was 32%! That's ridiculous! California is such a cluster****. It makes me glad to live in Texas, where we have some business sense, at least. http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/11/20/california.tuition.protests/index.html [rquoter]California students occupy buildings to protest fee hike November 20, 2009 1:14 p.m. EST Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- Students were occupying buildings Friday on several campuses of the University of California system in protest of a 32 percent tuition hike. Students had take over portions of buildings on campuses in Los Angeles, Berkeley, Santa Cruz and Davis late Thursday, and at least some were still occupied Friday morning. Student organizers said they would escalate their protests after the system's regents approved the tuition hike during a meeting Thursday on the UCLA campus. Authorities arrested dozens of angry students at the Davis campus late Thursday after they refused to vacate the school's administration building. The 52 students were taken into custody by the Davis Police Department and deputies from the Yolo County Sheriff's Department, according to Claudia Morain, a UC Davis spokeswoman. The arrests at the Mrak Administration building came about four hours after the normal 5 p.m. PT (8 p.m. ET) closing time. At one point, as many as 150 students were at the building protesting the tuition increase, Morain said. CNN affiliate KCRA-TV captured footage of students outside the building shouting, "Who's university? Our university!" In response to the protests, university officials said they will convene a meeting Friday between students, the director of student affairs and the school's top budget officials. Protesting students and others have said the tuition increase will hurt working and middle-class students who benefit from state-funded education. But officials argue that a fee increase and deep cuts in school spending are necessary because of a persistent budget crisis that has forced reductions across California's state government. The University of California's Board of Regents approved the plan a day after the regents' finance committee also approved the 32-percent hike in undergraduate tuition fees. On Wednesday, hundreds of students, faculty and campus workers protested outside the finance committee meeting on the UCLA campus. Fourteen people were arrested Wednesday after disrupting the regents' meeting with chanting, police said. University executives told regents the fee hikes were needed since they've already made deep spending cuts in the past two years -- cuts forced by the state budget. About 26 percent of the $20 billion spent each year by the system comes from the state's general fund and tuition and fees paid by students, according to a summary on the regent's Web site. The first tuition hike, which takes effect in January, will cost undergraduate students an additional $585 a semester. The second hike kicks in next fall, raising tuition another $1,344, she said. The fee increases would be balanced by a raise in "the level of financial assistance for needy low- and middle-income students," according to a statement from the Board of Regents. The tuition hike is expected to raise $505 million for the university system, and about $175 million of that money would go toward financial aid for low-income students, the board said.[/rquoter]
Ridiculous, yes. Still an incredibly good deal for the education provided? Probably so, especially when compared to tuition and fees at private universities, and even some other state universities.
I don't know how much their tuition has gone up the last few years or will in the next few, but tuition in Texas skyrocketed after deregulation around 2003 or 2004. If I remember right, we went up something like 60% in 3 years or so.
You'd need to compare what their proposed tuition is compared to other top tier instate tuitions elsewhere to make sense of this. My math says if $585+$1344 is 32% then tuition is currently about $6K and will be going to $8K. I have no idea how that compares.
^^ avg. overall cost goes above $10,000 in the case of UC public education in California is being strangled by the Governator's budget cuts. that goes for K-12 as well as higher education such as the CSU system and the UC system.
Right....Public education in California has been strangled by the teacher unions and a public school monopoly. <script type="text/javascript" src="http://reason.tv/embed/video.php?id=60"></script>
Ouch! I think I'll send my kids to Rimrocker's school. (but I may need the way way way WAY WWAAAAAAY back machine).
I think "tuition" will now be about $10,000. If you include room and board it's closer to $30,000. Per year. That's a 300% increase from when I went to a UC school ten years ago. Still, I'm not sure they have a lot of options given the state of the budget, and that's still cheaper than most comparable private schools.
This is happening, to some degree or another, just about everywhere. California may be the most extreme current example, but Texas hasn't been much better over the last few years. Between 1978 and 2008 Texas state schools no longer officially refer to themselves as "state-funded" ... now they are "state-assisted." Graduate departments are running out of money. It's getting progressively worse. Upward mobility is rapidly becoming a myth of the past. Can we jettison the whole "American Dream" bull**** yet? ...something needs to change, and change drastically, or this heap of **** that we're in now will just become the norm. Remember the good ol' days?
You may be right that it's still a competitive price. But, a big shock like that on the system is going to be damaging. The first hike happens in 2 months. Students couldn't plan for a 32% price increase when they enrolled. Imagine being a junior in college making crap money on a work-study gig and the school tells you you need to cough up another $600 in 2 months and an extra $3,800* for your senior year. You can't transfer in time for spring semester. You could for your senior year to go to a cheaper school, meaning your degree will be on paper worth less than that of the school you attended for 3/4ths of your education. Most will probably suck it up and find a way to pay but, on the margin, you will have people dropping their education over price. The price may be right, but they should have been bumping it up in previous years to avoid the price shocks. It'd be one thing if the UC system was alone in its dysfunction; but the whole state government is like this. * I think the price increase is after the 2 hikes: $1,344 per semester, plus $585 per semester, times two semesters: $3,858. That's going from $8k to $12k, with about 10 months of warning.
I have no issue with this (assuming it's not all going to the university president's salary or the construction of a gym et. al.).
I couldn't agree more. UC is really in danger of a substantial slip, and it's not just with students. Faculty are majorly ticked also, and a lot of them are getting pay cuts. UCSF's latest nobel prize winner (2009 prize in medicine) is reportedly getting a pay cut, according to something I saw on the news. That's not a good way to retain people who constantly field offers to move to other schools.
Deckard?? I'm glad I got out of UCLA 4 years ago as opposed to today. sucks for students...college getting harder to get into...a lot pricier and the economy is bad that there is no guarantee of a semi-decent job after graduating
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/e...ewin staff jobs&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=print April 21, 2009 Staff Jobs on Campus Outpace Enrollment By TAMAR LEWIN Over the last two decades, colleges and universities doubled their full-time support staff while enrollment increased only 40 percent, according to a new analysis of government data by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a nonprofit research center. During the same period, the staff of full-time instructors, or equivalent personnel, rose about 50 percent, while the number of managers increased slightly more than 50 percent. The data, based on United States Department of Education filings from more than 2,782 colleges, come from 1987 to 2007, before the current recession prompted many colleges to freeze their hiring. Neither the report nor outside experts on college affordability went so far as to argue that the increase in support staff was directly responsible for spiraling tuition. Most experts say that the largest driver of tuition increases has been the decline in state financing for higher education. Still, the findings raise concerns about administrative bloat, and the increasing focus on the social and residential nature of college life, as opposed to academics. “On a case-by-case basis, many of these hiring decisions might be good ones, but over all, it’s not a sustainable trend,” said Pat Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. “At a time when we’re trying to do something to hold down tuition increases,” Mr. Callan added, “this gives us a pretty good clue where we ought to be looking. And it does raise questions about the conventional wisdom that you can’t do anything to control tuition without affecting academic quality.” The growth in support staff included some jobs that did not exist 20 years ago, like environmental sustainability officers and a broad array of information technology workers. The support staff category includes many different jobs, like residential-life staff, admissions and recruitment officers, fund-raisers, loan counselors and all the back-office staff positions responsible for complying with the new regulations and reporting requirements college face. “A lot of it is definitely trying to keep up with the Joneses,” said Daniel Bennett, a labor economist and the author of the center’s report. “Universities and colleges are catering more to students, trying to make college a lifestyle, not just people getting an education. There’s more social programs, more athletics, more trainers, more sustainable environmental programs.” On average, public colleges have about 8 employees per 100 students, and private colleges about 9, according to the report. In the 20-year period, the report found, the greatest number of jobs added, more than 630,000, were instructors — but three-quarters of those were part-time. Converted to full-time equivalents, those resulted in a total of 939,00 teaching jobs, up from 614,000 in 1987. The largest number of full-time jobs added, more than 278,000, were for support staffs, and grew to more than half a million positions in 2007, from 292,000 in 1987. Colleges also added some 65,000 management positions, almost all of them full time; all told, they had 185,000 managers in 2007, up from about 120,000 managers 20 years earlier. “Colleges have altered the composition of their work force by steadily increasing the number of managerial positions and support/service staff, while at the same time disproportionately increasing the number of part-time staff that provides instruction,” the report said. “Meanwhile, employee productivity relative to enrollment and degrees awarded has been relatively flat in the midst of rising compensation.” ------------------------------------------------------------ The other bummer about this is the part-time hiring practices - people with PhDs are getting hired for part-time professorial jobs that have little or no health insurance and no benefits. The United States higher education system has already shot itself in both feet - it's only a matter of time, without drastic changes, before it shoots itself in the head.
This is a great thing for anyone interested in college to read. I've seen it over the last 10 years -- lots of new staff positions, whole new divisions. Some dedicated to IT stuff and some dedicted to "Campus Life," whatever that means. Like we need "leadership coordinators" and "ministers of campus alcohol consumption" and "Associate Provost of Student Hand-holding." Seriously, my school has a bunch of things like this. That's where most of the growth has been. From what I can tell at least half of the bogus staff growth comes from people holding Educational Doctorates (EdD's). I don't understand that degree, but they seem to make the process of education sound as complicated as possible so that they can create new staff jobs centered around allegedly improving student education, even while they have no real role in teaching students. It's mind-numbing, and frustrating, even though most of these folks are well-intentioned.
^^^^ Thanks for posting that. I fully agree that the US education system (including higher education) is pretty messed up. I'm not surprised that beureacratic nonsense is expanding - that appears to be America all over. For the record, your comment on "temporary hiring" hit home. My sister has been working for the past three years as a professor (she has her phd), and each year is a different college. It's been extremely hard on her, and is a constant source of worry. In general, however, I am of the opinion that college should be accessible for everyone, but not at the expense of fiscal realities.
I paid about $110 a semester for everything. Had a pad of my own for $65 a month, bills paid. Worked part-time on two different jobs, one very high paying, but very part-time, for a local newspaper. Life was good. Chicks all over the place, bras a distant memory, concerts from $3 to $5 bucks, and love was all around you. Yes, a groovy time.
