glaser (02/13/83)
The idea of a student boycott to protest tuition hikes sounds quite sensible, especially at a public school (such as U.C.) funded (in large part) by the state. Good luck with it! At the same time, my initial reaction to your protest over a $100/quarter (= 300/academic yr) increase was one of amusement. Here at Yale, the 1983-84 price tag has just been announced: $12,980 for tuition, room, and board, an increase from this past year of over $1600! Now, I realize there's a big difference between a state school and a private university, where over 1/2 of the student body is receiving some kind of financial aid. Still, if you're boycotting over 300, we should be striking over $1600! At Yale, the announcement has met with general apathy; I would guess that most people don't want to think about it.
glaser (02/13/83)
(correction to previous article) Yale's costs went up over $1300, not $1600. The point remains the same. Rob Glaser (decvax!yale-comix!glaser)
swatt (02/14/83)
Ye Gods! Boycott classes because the tuition went up from $100 to $300??? Not only counterproductive, but unrealistic. State and Federal government agencies are competing with each other to see who can cut more money faster. Institutional grants dry up in a real hurry if companies are losing money. Where do you expect UCB to get the money it needs to operate? You might consider the UCB tuition in light of Reed College. According The the latest President's report, ** 71% ** of the 1982 revenues came from student tuition and fees ($6,975,000 out of $9,726,000). Ten years ago, it was ** 85% **. Even this didn't cover expenses and they had to dip into their reserves for $150,000. Not surprisingly, 14.4% of their expenditures were on student financial aid (up 55% from 1981). Even so, when their freshman enrollment was 30 below projections last year, it HURT. I don't know what percentage of students receive some form of assistance, but it is quite high. My point in all this is although you might think of Reed as as school for "rich kids", the cost per pupil for undergraduate education probably isn't significantly greater than at UCB. The difference is that as a totally private institution, the "customers" have to pay the entire cost. Reed got $222,000 from various government grants in 1982, down from $256,000 the previous year. The "tuition" at UCB is subsidized by massive funds from the state of California, and probably the Feds as well. From everything I've heard, students at UCB get a very good education. At $300 / semester, it's a real bargain these days. - Alan S. Watt
fair (02/15/83)
Two corrections to make to previous observations: 1. UC is no longer in the catagory of "state supported", it is "state assisted" which is to say that less than 50% of the budget is provided by the state. We're cranking up the "hit the alums for money" apparatus for the very first time. 2. UCB fees come to $392.50. That's closer to $400 than $300. A trivial point if you come from Marin County, as I do. A non-trivial point, if you come from East Oakland. (That's per quarter). Add $100 to that, and you're talking $1500 a year... Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@Berkeley
denise (02/15/83)
In reading the reply made by Alan S. Watt on this subject, I believe he misread the fee raise. He said: "Ye Gods! Boycott classes because the tuition went up from $100 to $300??? Not only counterproductive, but unrealistic." This is not so. Fees were increased 'by' $100 to $300, not 'from' $100 to $300. The fees last quarter at UCSD were 398.50 and next quarter they will be 510.50 this is for undergraduates and does not include health insurance which is optional. This is per quarter also, which comes out to 1531.50 per year (housing and books not included). Many of the students I have talked with understand the need for fee hikes but are upset because the hike comes in the middle of the school year and there is virtually no time to save the extra needed dollars.
tjiang (02/16/83)
A the University of Toronto which is a publicly funded university, the engineering students took a different view. The students voted last year to increase their tuition by $100 dollars/year. Considering that students in Canada only pay 15% of the actual cost of education and how hard times are now, this is probably a very responsible move.
thomas (02/19/83)
I still think you guys got it pretty good out there. My tuition (10 - 7 years ago) was over $5000 per year, and it's now up to almost $10,000 at the same institution. (My heart bleeds... :-)) =Spencer
arnold (02/20/83)
I think another point has been lost in the discussion on the $100 fee increase at U. of California. Many people have made comments on how little it costs compared to their tuition. What they don't understand is that this is not tuition. Tuition is forbidden by the state constitution, which set up the University to provide a \free/ education for the citizens of the state. This sounds nit-picky, but is a crucial difference. The philosophy upon which the state university system was founded was that higher education of its citizens was beneficial to the state as a whole, and that therefore the state should educate all the highest qualified people in the state, regardless of ability to pay. Fees were introduced during the Regan administration (his gubernatorial one, to be precise) not as tuition, but to suppots "non-educational" activities, such as the bureaucracy which supports classes student government, the art museum, the band, intramural sports, etc. These were deemed to be peripheral to education, and thus fees could be assesed for them. What all this leads to is that if the concept of public benefit upon which the public university system was founded is still valid (and I would maintain it is), then the problem of escalating fees is quite real. It would once again make access to higher education based on ability to pay (although, admittedly, with what financial aid is let these days, some very poor people could get in). This means that some individuals who are highly qualified and motivated will not be able to be educated. This would, I believe, be a great loss not only to the individuals most directly concerned, but to all of us who live in the society which has ceased to look upon education as a benefit to all. Ken
turner (03/01/83)
#R:utcsrgv:-103600:ucbesvax:2900003:000:170
ucbesvax!turner Feb 16 15:46:00 1983
Can you give us some details? People don't just arbitrarily and
spontaneously vote themselves more expense. What was at issue in the
vote?
Michael Turner