3 months ago
LOS ANGELES, CA -- The University of California Board of Regents finance committee Wednesday approved a budget plan that includes steep hikes in student fees, as thousands of students and workers gathered at the system's Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses to protest the increases.
The committee met at UCLA today and voted in favor of increasing student fees for undergraduate, graduate and professional programs. The full Board of Regents will vote on the matter on Thursday. The measure is one of several responses to sharp reductions in state funding.
For undergraduate students, the proposal would increase mandatory fees by more than $2,500, or 32 percent by the 2010-11 school year, with some increases taking effect in spring of 2010.
The vote Wednesday came amid a chaotic hearing at UCLA in which campus police arrested 14 protesters and monitored scores of other protesters outside the meeting.
The meeting was closed to visitors after repeated outbursts by students and union members.
Protesters chanted outside the building as the university Board of Regents committee voted to boost fees over two years. The fullboard is scheduled to vote Thursday.
Armed, uniformed officers arrested 14 protesters after theyrefused to leave a meeting room on the University of California, Los Angeles campus.
Meanwhile, several thousand students, staff and workers at UC Berkeley kicked off a three-day labor strike and student walkout to protest the fee increases.
About 200 workers began picketing at five school construction sites and five campus entrances, as well as at UC Berkeley's Richmond Field Station, before sunrise, said Tanya Smith, president of the Berkeley chapter of the University Professional and Technical Employees-Communications Workers of America Local 9119. The union represents about 800 UC Berkeley researchers and technical employees. Several other unions also participated on the protests.
At about 1 p.m., she estimated 3,000 people had converged on Sproul Plaza for a rally decrying the increased fees.
Marika Goodrich, a UC Berkeley student, said "we're shutting down the university because they're shutting us out. Today we refuse to be silent."
During the rally, protesters chanted, "Whose university? Our university?"
Kathryn Lybarger, a gardener at UC Berkeley who's a member of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 as well as the Solidarity Alliance, said, "It is you regents who are set to wreck the university and the rest of us will save it."
Lybarger said, "Education is a right and it should be free."English professor Bob Hass, a former U.S. poet laureate, called for higher taxes so that more money can be spent on education. Hass said California spent more money per student on education than all but one or two states before Proposition 13, which limits property tax increases, was passed in 1978. California now ranks nearly last on spending per student, he said.
Hass decried what he described as "a growing income gap in our society" and called for "disciplined, well-organized labor organizations." He recalled that the University of California was founded as a land grant university aimed at educating everyone who was interested.
"There should be education not only by the rich and for the rich but there should be education for everybody," Hass said.
When the rally ended about 1:30 p.m., several hundred protesters marched west on Bancroft Avenue, starting from the intersection of Bancroft and Telegraph avenues. The march was boisterous but peaceful as it began, with participants changing, "Education is a right! One struggle, one fight!"
An organizer said the march could last up to several hours and is expected to end back at Sproul Plaza.
The unions have committed to two days of picketing, according to UPTE-CWA local president Smith. However, some staff and students are planning a third day.
Union members are also frustrated by ongoing contract negotiations with the university, she said.
"The priorities of the UC administration have to be changed," she said.
Leslie Sepuka, spokeswoman for the UC Office of the President, said that president Mark Yudof and regents dislike inflicting higher fees on students. However, university leadership is asking students, faculty and workers share equally in the pain of absorbing a $1.2 billion budget shortfall over a two-year period while preserving the system's academic standards.
"As far as the student unrest, free speech is what the university is about," she said. "They should be offended -- it's a horrible situation."
The slate of fee increases approved today will generate an estimated $505 million. Of this, $175 million will be set aside for financial aid, according to UC.
The budget plan approved today also calls for an additional $913 million from the state to counteract previous cuts.
"I know this is a painful day for university students and their families," Yudof said in a statement. He called the budget plan "our one best shot at preventing this recession from pulling down a great system toward mediocrity."
Initial news of the proposed fee hikes prompted a Sept. 25 walkout and rally that attracted an estimated 5,000 participants. Smith said Wednesday's events are similar, "except it's a little more organized."
UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said Wednesday's activities did not cause any major disruptions.
"The vast majority of classes are under way as scheduled," he said. "Otherwise things have gone really peacefully."
The trickle-down effect from the university's moves even reach down through the state's educational system, impacting California's community colleges.
Los Rios Community College District chancellor Brice Harris believes more and more students priced out of the UC and CSU systems will try to access their programs -- programs which are already above capacity.
"We have more students than we've ever had and, unfortunately, less money. That makes for that perfect storm," Harris said. "We have enrollment caps like the universities and, in our case, we're currently running about 15 percent over that cap. That means that for every class of 20 students, we have three students for whom we receive no state support."
News10/KXTV, The Associated Press and Bay City News
