SAN FRANCISCO — The University of California Board of Regents voted last week to raise fees thousands of dollars for professional school students, a move the regents said is to compensate for the state budget crisis and to make up for anticipated losses in lawsuits filed regarding previous fee increases.
The regents, who met July 20 and 21 at the UC San Francisco campus, also discussed the UC’s management of national nuclear laboratories and the creation of a new system-wide program to increase the UC’s output of highly qualified math and science teachers for the state’s public schools.
The professional fee increase, which was passed by a vote of 12-6, comes on top of a 3 percent increase approved in November, which combined will raise fees for most programs about 10 percent over last year’s fees. Fees at the UCLA School of Law, UCLA School of Dentistry and at the UCLA Anderson School of Management will go up more than $2,400 compared to last year.
“In that last couple of years, we’ve had enormous cuts in state support in regard to our professional schools,” said UC Vice President of Budget Larry Hershman. He said that due to the budget circumstances, fee increases for students are necessary for the UC to continue to provide a quality education.
Some regents took the position of the many students who protested the fee increases during the public comment period – that the increases in fees will make it more difficult to attend UC professional schools and make students more likely to go somewhere else.
“I think it’s short-sighted and a tremendous mistake to put this on the backs of (professional) students,” said UC Regent Norman J. Pattiz.
UC Regent Monica Lozano said that while she does understand that fees need to be raised at times and favors the creation of a long-term predictable fee policy, she could not support increases that students can’t plan ahead for.
In addition, a temporary educational fee of $700, which will be raised to $1,050 for 2006-2007, will be assessed to make up for the UC’s estimated $20 million loss in a class-action suit filed in 2003 against the university.
The students represented in the suit claim fee hikes the UC assessed after the state budget crisis were a breach of contract, as the UC had promised that their fees would remain constant until their graduation.
The UC estimates its losses could increase to $55 million if a court orders it to issue refunds of raised fees that were collected. A second class-action suit, representing a different entering class of UC professional students, was filed July 12 in San Francisco Superior Court.
Miguel Casillas, president of the Boalt Hall Student Association at UC Berkeley’s law school, called the temporary educational fee “a miscarriage of justice.”
“We weren’t part of (the lawsuit), and now we’re victims of circumstance,” Casillas said.
Prior to the vote, UC Student Association president Jennifer Lilla urged the regents to “choose to make higher education affordable again” and reverse the trend toward “privatization” of UC professional schools.
“These fee hikes are not fair. They come late in the year. ... There has to be a better solution to what may be a temporary shortfall than permanently punishing professional students,” Lilla said.
While fee increases are always unfortunate, the losses from the lawsuit threaten to directly affect the quality of UC professional schools, said UC Regent Judith L. Hopkinson. “In weighing the challenge that the university faces, with the shortfall ... I don’t think the university has a choice.”
Many of the regents said the decision to raise fees was extremely difficult.
“On one side, I really think the professional schools need the support to be able to compete. ... On the other hand, personally, I can see that the UC does not have the money,” said UC Regent David S. Lee.
The UC also approved an extension of the contract for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory until 2007, at which point the Department of Energy will open the contract for competition.
UC officials commented on their bid for the Los Alamos National Laboratory too, also operated by the U.S. Department of Energy. UCLA has managed the New Mexico lab since World War II, but after recent mismanagement and security problems, the Department of Energy opened the contract to competition.
To address the recent problems, a special company has been established to manage security, although the UC will still play a major role.
UC Regent Gerald L. Parksy and UC San Diego Chancellor Marye Ann Fox will sit on the board, as well as representatives from the San Francisco-based engineering company Bechtel National, UC’s bid partner for Los Alamos, and experts from nuclear security firm BWX Technologies, Inc.
The UC-Betchel team submitted its proposal for a 13-year renewable contract on July 18, and is in competition with a team formed by the University of Texas and Lockheed Martin.
A third bid was filed by two non-profit watchdog groups, Nuclear Watch of New Mexico and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, a Livermore-based organization.
“We’ve put together what I think is a very compelling case, based on science and technology as a platform for national security, and my perspective is that we are offering the nation a choice between a strong ... academic, science-based proposal on one hand, and a defense contract on the other,” said UC President Robert Dynes.
Details of the UC’s plans for the future of Los Alamos have not been released.
“The Los Alamos management contract is a competition, and as a consequence we will not be speaking publicly about the contents of the proposal,” said S. Robert Foley, UC vice president of laboratory management.
The regents also unveiled plans for the California Teach program, in accordance with the California science and mathematics initiative. The program aims to quadruple the UC’s current production of highly qualified science and math teachers for K-12 schools to 1,000 annually by 2010.
California Teach will provide the opportunity for all UC undergraduates majoring in a science, mathematics or engineering to complete their coursework and become credentialed teachers within four years to provide desperately needed teachers for California public schools.
The state will be short nearly 4,000 teachers in math and science next year, and nearly a third of current teachers will be eligible for retirement by 2010. California eighth graders place last in science and near the bottom in math for national state competency averages, according to the National Assessment of Education Progress.
The program will benefit the university in the long term by providing opportunities for current students and producing more UC-eligible students in the future by providing a better education in K-12 schools, said UC Provost MRC Greenwood.
The regents also presented the new student regent, Maria Ledesma, who will serve a two-year term on the board, one year as a non-voting designate and a second year as a full voting member of the board. Ledesma is a UCLA student pursuing a doctorate in social sciences and comparative education and the first Latina to serve as student regent in the UC’s history.