By snoadmin
A California State University student seeking tuition relief these days stands about as much of a chance at surviving as a soccer mom trying to gas up the old minivan at a crack house.
In actuality, the soccer mom’s prospects are better. She can probably make a quick getaway on the little bit of high octane left in the tank. Anybody tied to the pursuit of higher education in the state’s two public university systems is literally running on fumes.
Students in the CSU system have to brace themselves for an inevitable 10 percent increase amounting to about $277 for undergrads for the upcoming academic year, as well as similar spikes planned into the next decade.
The CSU pumped up our tuitions by $252 earlier this year. Of course, they gave us a time-out for the fall semester, but that was only after a loud temper tantrum from the California Faculty Association (the teacher’s union) and CSU students in Sacramento.
The fee escalation was essentially etched in stone two weeks ago when CSU Chancellor Charles Reed told the Los Angeles Times “[I]t would behoove the 450,000 students to ‘start thinking’ about a possible fee increase.”
To pretend the tuition increases are a surprise is to plant one’s head deeply in the sand, because we’ve written about it repeatedly in the Daily Forty-Niner over the past few months. We’ve harped on it so much that our Editor in Chief Bradley Zint has told us enough is enough on the topic, unless something new develops.
Well, here we are, boys and girls. Something new has emerged and we encourage all students concerned with current and future debt to get involved.
A student-based group called Students and Families for Tuition Relief Now recently formed to fight the dark cloud hovering over our educational horizons. The organization is seeking to freeze undergraduate tuition increases for the next five years through a first-ever student-led ballot initiative.
Thus far, students in the organization are bonding throughout the 30 CSU and University of California campuses, attempting to collect “43,000 signatures by April in order for the initiative to appear on next year’s November ballot,” according to the new organization’s website.
As part of Tuition Relief Now’s hoped-for initiative, “The law will raise new revenue specifically for the cost of educating UC and CSU students through a one percent tax on millionaires’ income over $1 million.”
Another clause in the proposed initiative (meant to force accountability) would mandate CSU and UC administrators to report to a citizen panel comprised of students and parents on how the new money is spent.
As icing on the cake, the upstart activists demand that future tuition increases be restricted to the rate of inflation.
Although the CSU Board of Trustees won’t make a final decision until March, the writing is on the wall. The state is crying broke, showing its pockets are inside-out with a $10-billion deficit and clamoring for the “$73 million they estimate is needed to avoid the fee increase.”
Even though the 10 percent jump might not seem like much to an uninformed observer, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, an ex-officio CSU trustee and UC Board of Regents member, pointed out that “fees have gone up more than 90 percent” for the two systems since 2002, far exceeding the state’s inflation index during the same time span.
With the CSU management’s ongoing trend of overspending and lackadaisical fiscal habits, the university doors are being kicked open for predatory loan companies. More and more, students will be forced to work multiple menial jobs to take fewer classes toward degrees.
By raising a unified objection, students can force the system to stop dumping their bad financial habits in our laps.
It’s time to put this 23-campus crack house chain on notice before future soccer moms are forced to take the bus.
To get involved in the initiative, more information is available at Tuition Relief Now’s website at tuitionreliefnow.org
