UC Regents Meet In San Francisco To Discuss Fee Increase
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - The University of California Regents began their three-day meeting Tuesday and are expected to focus on a proposed 8% fee increase.
This will be the first time in a decade, that the UC Regents finished out a year of meetings without visiting an undergraduate campus.
They are meeting at the Mission Bay campus specifically to save on statewide travel costs, and because the facility was deemed less conducive for protests.
Last November's meeting at UCLA ended with a rowdy student protest over a 32% fee hike. That protest grew to be so rowdy that regents were, for a time, reluctant to leave their meeting room.
These university fee hikes seem to be pushing some students away from California's public university system and into the hands of a number of private colleges across the country.
Representatives of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities tell the Sacramento Bee that Colgate University as well as Swarthmore and Whitman colleges reported large increases in applications from California students last year.
KCBS' Rebecca Corral Interviews Jill Yoshikawa of Creative Marbles:
U.C. President Mark Yudof acknowledged many were still unhappy with this year's fee hike proposal.
KCBS Anchors Stan Bunger and Susan Leigh Taylor talk with U.C. President Mark Yudof
"All families under $80,000 will not pay one dime of tuition. And families between $80,000 and $120,000 will have a one-year holiday on the fee increase," he outlined the proposal.
"The University of California is still less expensive than Penn State and Michigan and Illinois and a number of other states. So the money is really needed in order to maintain the excellence of the university, that we don't lose professors."
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