Proposition 30’s passage has temporarily stabilized declining state support for the Cal State University and allowed Cal State Long Beach to do what some students thought to be unthinkable – reduce tuition.
With the fee refunds, rescissions and reductions that Prop. 30’s passage instigated, students may pay up to $498 less for next semester’s tuition, according to CSULB Vice President of Administration and Finance Mary Stephens.
An education trailer bill passed in June by the state legislature arranged for a tuition buyout deal, which required that the CSU roll back its 9 percent tuition increase for this fall in exchange for an additional $125 million in state funding in 2013-14. In August, the CSU decided to take the deal should Prop. 30 pass.
Now, with the proposition’s passage, CSULB will refund $498 to students to make up for the 9 percent tuition increase. The disbursement of the funds will be split into two payments of $249, one of which will automatically reduce spring tuition. The second will either reduce spring 2013 tuition by another $249, bringing the cost down to $2,487, or may be sent as a refund check to students who fill out a form requesting it.
Over the weekend, the Bursar’s Office began reducing fall tuition fee amounts, according to an email from Nicolas Valdivia, director of financial aid at CSULB. Students were expected to see a credit balance appearing on their student accounts.
Had Prop. 30 failed, spring 2013 tuition would have been $3,135.
Stephens said she thinks most students will opt to have the money put towards spring tuition.
“With registration so close, they’d have to put it right back in tuition once they got it,”
Stephens said.
Students not returning next semester, however, will need to fill out a Request for Refund form, according to Stephens. Students who received financial aid won’t be refunded the first installment of $249 but will have the second installment taken off of next semester’s tuition.
According to Valdivia’s email, students’ final credit balances will be released to them by Dec. 1. Students who are already signed up for eRefund, because of past financial aid, will not need to submit a Request for Refund form.
While students across campus count the cash they have saved, campus administrators say that classes have also been saved.
“Had [Prop. 30] failed, we would have had $5 million less for classes,” CSULB Vice Provost David Dowell said.
With one-time stimulus funds gone and no new state funding, CSULB would have had no way to continue supporting some classes. Much to the relief of faculty and staff, however, that is not a worry now.
“Prop. 30 leaves us stable but in a position where we can’t add back very much,” Dowell said.
