For most students, the cost of earning a California State University degree has continued to increase even though tuition froze three years ago.
Mandatory campus fees have risen at 21 out of the 23 CSU campuses since 2011-2012, the year tuition froze, according to the CSU. The increases have ranged from $37 at Cal State Northridge, to a $780 student-approved increase at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
Although the CSU froze tuition at $5,472 in July 2012 and state funding has increased by more than $300 million since Prop. 30 passed in November 2012, CSU Spokesman Mike Uhlenkamp said that cuts to the CSU budget have made it so that students have to cover a larger portion of the total cost of educatoin, which amounts to roughly $11,000 per year.
Unless the state greatly increases funding, Uhlenkamp said that isn’t likely to change.
“During the recession, the massive cuts in funding led to increased tuition as students were now forced to pay a larger portion of their education,” Uhlenkamp said. “ That’s not going to change unless the state provides funding at much greater levels than what is proposed for the next few years.”
CSULB Interim Provost of Academic Affairs David Dowell said that even with tuition increases, campuses are underfunded and need fees to make ends meet.
“Having been through some serious budget cuts, campuses have turned toward these fees to meet their needs,” Dowell said.
Unlike tuition, mandatory campus fees are not used to support administrative costs and cannot be used to increase enrollment. Mandatory campus fees, Uhlenkamp said, are used to fund campus programs, services and course offerings.
“With [campus-specific] fees, those are typically for the services and programmatic offerings that are offered at the campus,” he said. “That is why there’s a difference between what you would see at Long Beach versus Cal Poly Pomona. What the campus is saying is that, ‘for us to be able to provide you with an additional level of service, we’re going to ask you if you think it’s appropriate to pay that fee.’”
Recently, “student success fees” or similarly named student fees have been implemented at nine CSU campuses. Five other campuses, including San Diego State, Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Dominguez Hills, are currently looking into establishing their own.
Student success fees are subject to public forums and an advisory vote from students, which shows administrators if students support the increase but does not determine if the increase is passed. Ultimately, CSU Chancellor Timothy White approves or rejects the increase.
But not all fee increases, such as the $158 annual increase to Cal State Long Beach’s Student Excellence Fee, need approval from the chancellor. Former CSULB President F. King Alexander passed the fee without the chancellor’s approval.
For CSULB specifically, Dowell said the $158 annual increase to the Student Excellence Fee is being used to improve campus technology.
“The funding that we get from the state and from tuition hasn’t really caught up with the costs of technology,” Dowell said. “To some extent, the answer is that the explosion of technology in recent years has happened faster than funding has kept up.”
In a 2011 memorandum, former CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed said the CSU Fee Policy adopted in May 2010, which set up the tiered fee system, required “a new partnership commitment from the students, the state and the university” where each is “called upon to sacrifice and to innovate.”
“The historic commitment to low fees, regardless of economic status, cannot be sustained in light of the protracted problems of the state budget,” Reed said in the memorandum. “Allowing fee revenues to augment the instructional programs would increase accountability to students, their families, and state policy makers.”
