Regents Agenda for Next Week - Part 2

UC to consider a new type of tuition hikes over next five years: Tuition would increase $606, or 4.8 percent, to $13,176 for next fall's freshmen. Current students would be exempt.

EdSource, 3-10-20, Larry Gordon

A radically new model of tuition increases, encompassing five hikes over the next five years, is set to be considered by the University of California Board of Regents next week. Officials say that more than half of UC’s undergraduates will be shielded from the extra costs because of automatic raises in financial aid.

The plan – called cohort tuition– would freeze tuition for students already at one of UC’s nine undergraduate campuses while raising it for the freshmen class entering in fall 2020 by $606, or 4.8 percent, to $13,176 for California residents. That new group would then have its tuition unchanged for up to six years. Then each subsequent entering class would see further increases of between 3.3 percent and 4.7 percent when they enter UC and have their own six-year freezes.

By the end of those proposed steps, estimated tuition and systemwide mandatory fees for California residents in the entering class of 2024 would be $15,414, not including housing, food and books, according to plan. The figures could change somewhat because they will be partly linked to inflation. Housing, food, books and other costs can be an extra $20,000 a year.

The UC regents are scheduled to vote March 19 on the plan, which faces strong opposition from students and Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is a member of the regents board. However, university administrators say the governor’s plan to give UC a five percent, or $217.7 million, increase in state funding for next year is not enough to cover salaries, offer enough classes and pay for other escalating costs.

For many low-income students, financial aid will fully cover the tuition hikes and also provide some extra money for housing, food and books expenses, according to the regents agenda item. State-funded Cal Grants automatically rise to match tuition levels at the state’s public universities and campus aid programs are expected to grow as well. In most cases, only students from families with incomes of about $120,000 a year will feel the full pinch of higher tuition, officials said...

Students from other states and countries – who comprise nearly a fifth of UC’s 226,000 undergraduates – would see much higher costs than California residents under the proposal. For them, both the basic UC tuition and the supplemental charges for out-of-staters would go up. For those students, tuition and basic fees would be $44,370 in the fall and climb to $51,936 in 2024, with housing costs extra. Those non-Californians are not eligible for Cal Grants, although they can receive some UC and federal grants...

Full story at https://edsource.org/2020/uc-to-consider-a-new-type-of-tuition-hikes-over-next-five-years/625108