Cal State University trustees voiced some reluctance Tuesday with implementing the system’s first tuition increase in about five years, but avoiding a tuition hike may prove difficult.
“I’m not yet convinced that we should increase the tuition fees,” trustee Silas Abrego said during Tuesday’s meeting.
Abrego wasn’t alone in expressing such a view, and he and other trustees still have about two months before it’s time for an actual decision on tuition. A vote cannot happen before March, and trustees for the 23-campus system appear to face a choice between raising tuition or holding off on the system’s ambitious plan to increase graduation rates over the next several years.
Beyond those two scenarios, there is perhaps an outside chance the state Legislature will appropriate enough money for CSU leaders to receive the funding they want without raising tuition. For the present, however, Gov. Jerry Brown’s initial budget proposal would leave a substantial gap between the amount of money trustees have requested and what Sacramento may actually be willing to provide.
Student impacts vary
Tuition at CSU campuses, not including fees assessed at the campus level or the costs of room and board, has remained stable since the 2011-12 school year. A California resident taking a full load of undergraduate classes currently pays $5,472.
If trustees increase tuition in March, those students would see their tuition increase by $270, to $5,742.
California residents enrolled in credential programs, such as those who are preparing to become teachers, would see their tuition increase by $312, to $6,660 per year. Resident graduate students’ tuitions would rise $438, to $7,176.
CSU administrators, however, have sought to emphasize that most undergraduate students would not actually have to pay the tuition increase because financial aid packages will continue to cover those costs.
Assistant Vice Chancellor Ryan Storm said during the meeting that students with family incomes at $70,000 or less would not have to pay increased tuition costs out of pocket.
If tuition rises, roughly 60 percent of CSU undergraduates would have the increased costs covered via waivers, Cal Grants or the CSU State University Grant, according to CSU.
CSU has also projected $77.5 million in net revenue from increased tuition paid by the remainder of California resident students, and that money may be necessary to implement a recently adopted strategy intended to accelerate CSU students’ graduation rates.
Quicker graduation to offset tuition hike?
If the strategy is successful, 40 percent of undergraduates would earn their diplomas within four years by 2025. Among students who enrolled in the CSU as freshmen in 2011, about 19 percent completed their studies in four years.
Sacramento gave the CSU a $35 million appropriation to start the graduation initiative, and university officials estimate they will need $75 million in continual funding to add the 3,000 classes and hire the 400 faculty members they say are needed to make the plan work.
Trustee’s chairwoman Rebecca Eisen said during Tuesday’s meeting that board members should be cognizant that tuition increases create an ongoing expense for Vevobahis students. Absent any additional tuition increases, an additional $270 would multiply to $1,350 over five years.
That said, Eisen also asserted that students may save money in the long run if the CSU can shorten the time necessary for students to earn their degrees.
“It’s helpful to keep in mind that if we all go the way we want it to go, there should be a net savings,” Eisen said. “We have to fund that graduation initiative somehow.”
In November, when trustees last discussed a potential tuition hike, several students dressed themselves as zombies and called themselves “The Walking Debt” in protest. Student activists did not stage a rally Tuesday but did show up to voice their opposition.
“When you are deciding to raise our tuition, you are deciding to raise our debt,” Cal State Dominguez Hills student Elizabeth Cabral said during the meeting’s time for public comment.
State politics to play a role
The governor’s initial budget proposal for the fiscal year beginning in July called for increasing CSU’s funding by about $157 million. In CSU’s view of the numbers, that’s enough to pay for planned pay increases for professors and staffers as well as some other mandatory costs, but not enough for the costs associated with the graduation rate initiative nor desired enrollment growth.
If the Legislature and governor were to fully fund trustees’ $5.8 billion support budget request, they would have to agree to allocate nearly $187 million more than what the governor has already proposed to do so.
If trustees vote to raise tuition in March, CSU officials said that decision could be reversed if future developments in state politics are favorable to the university. The governor is scheduled to release a revised budget proposal in May, after which it’s up to lawmakers to agree to a final spending plan.
The University of California Board of Regents has already voted to raise tuition for that system’s nine undergraduate campuses. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose office gives him a seat on both university boards, praised CSU trustees for spending time to talk about raising tuition, rather than emulating what he termed the “ready, fire, aim” approach of their UC counterparts.
Newsom, who is running for governor, lamented that the governor’s proposal to phase out the state’s Middle Class Scholarship program, open to CSU and UC students with family incomes and certain assets of up to $156,000, would leave middle class families impacted the most by a tuition increase.
He also cautioned against anyone assuming legislators may step in to rescue the CSU with extra funding that would cancel any tuition increase.
The lieutenant governor went on to say that trustees should not allow the governor and Legislature to craft a budget that doesn’t give substantially more funding to the CSU but also acknowledged he didn’t persuade UC regents to avoid a tuition hike.
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