3 months ago
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- University of California regents finally left a UCLA building where protesters, angry over a hefty student fee increase, earlier linked arms to block the exits.
University spokesman Phil Hampton said regents safely left the campus Thursday afternoon by police escort after the regents approved the 32 percent increase.
Hampton said much of the crowd had dispersed by mid-afternoon.
The UC Board of Regents approved a budget plan Thursday that will increase student fees by more than 30 percent over the next year.
The Board approved a 32 percent increase in undergraduate student fees, increasing student fees for undergraduate, graduate and professional programs, said Ricardo Vazquez, spokesman for the UC Office of the President.
By next fall, undergraduate fees will be boosted by $2,500, sending the average annual education cost at a UC campus to more than $10,000. That's triple the amount from a decade ago.
The budget also seeks an additional $913 million in state funding for the 2010-11 operating budget.
All but one regent voted to approve the budget plan. Student Regent Jesse Bernal cast the lone opposition vote.
UC President Mark Yudof said in a prepared statement, "We're being forced to impose a user tax on our students and their families. This is a tax necessary because our political leaders have failed to adequately fund public higher education."
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The decision came as hundreds of students chanted and marched outside the meeting hall to protest the measure. Some students also took over another UCLA building and chained the doors shut.
Meanwhile, UC Davis students angry over the vote staged a loud protest Thursday, railing against university administration.
Nearly 100 protesters chanted, stomped their feet and carried signs lambasting the fee hike inside UCD's Olson Hall around 11 a.m. Thursday.
Another demonstration also broke out in UC Davis' main adminstration building Mrak Hall.
By 5 p.m., dozens of students remained in Mrak and UC Davis police said if they continued to resist orders to leave, they could be arrested.
Some students at UC Davis said they won't be able to afford to return next semester if the fees increase.
"I feel like some people will actually go back to community college to get rid of all their general education," said UC Davis sophomore Alison More.
Meanwhile, officers armed with beanbag guns stood by as hundreds of protesters chanted, marched and even took over a building Thursday morning on the UCLA campus.
The demonstrators outside UCLA's Covel Commons building chanted, beat drums and waved signs urging "No fee hikes" and "Wanted: Leadership."
In Berkeley, hundreds of students, union members and supporters gathered for a noon rally at UC Berkeley's Sproul Plaza. When the board's decision was announced, the crowd booed loudly.
Toni Mendicino, a UC Berkeley secretary and spokeswoman for the Coalition of University Employees, was at the rally. She called the decision "an outrage" and said it will severely impact students.
"Obviously the regents are not interested in learning about how the fee hike is impacting students' lives. If they were here on campus, they'd talk to people who will now be dropping out of school because they cannot afford to go here anymore," Mendicino said.
She said the union, which represents UC clerical workers, is "standing with the students that are being hit, just like staff and employees are being furloughed and laid off."
Members of some Bay Area unions, including the Oakland-based AFSCME Local 3299, traveled down to this week's board meetings in Los Angeles to protest the proposed budget plan.
Union spokesman Sanjay Garla said "people pretty much expected the result. We know where the regents are at on this thing."
News10/KXTV
