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Today's Top News
Rage at UC Fee Hike in L.A., Berkeley Protests
LOS ANGELES - The UC regents are expected to put the final seal today on a hefty 32 percent tuition increase as students resume the protests that shut down their board meeting three times Wednesday and required campus police in riot gear to maintain calm.
UC Berkeley graduate student Alex Dubilet marches through Sproul Plaza to oppose 32% fee hikes before a huge rally in Berkeley on Wednesday. (Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle)
Students, furious at the increase that will bring their yearly fees
above $10,000 for the first time, rushed the UCLA building where the
regents were meeting, throwing food, sticks and vinegar-soaked red
bandannas meant to look like blood.
UC police arrested 14 people for disrupting the meeting and resisting arrest.
Wednesday's vote by the regents' finance committee was also protested at UC Berkeley, where about 1,000 students, faculty and university workers filled Sproul Plaza for a noontime rally. About 300 protesters turned out at UC Santa Cruz. The full board is to vote today.
Students at other campuses signed petitions or traveled to UCLA to oppose the fee increases and set up tents to camp out and carry on their protests today.
UC President Mark Yudof had recommended the undergraduate and graduate fee increases to help close a budget gap of $535 million this year - largely the result of reduced state funding and inflation. Yudof said UC has lost more than $1 billion in state funding since last year, leading the university to lay off some 2,000 employees, reduce faculty pay through furloughs and cut course offerings to students.
Fees to cover losses
The new fees are expected to generate more than half a billion dollars, enabling the university to restore some of its worst cuts, Yudof said.
The UC president said he intends to ask the state for an additional $913 million - a longshot request as the state projects a $21 billion budget gap and the state legislative analyst reported Wednesday that increased funding for higher education was unlikely.
At the regents meeting, Yudof said he was sympathetic to the students' anger - and might even have joined them in his earlier years - but said the regents had no choice but to raise fees again. The increase would be the eighth since 2002.
"The students' rightful expectations exceed the resources of California," he said after the vote.
Over and over, students rose during the public comment period to tell Yudof and the regents that UC is an intellectual refuge that will be lost to the immigrants, students of color and low-income people who have come to depend on it.
"Say goodbye to diversity," said Corey Matthews, chairman of the Afrikan American Student Union at UCLA.
"We're bailing out the banks, bailing out the auto industry - where's the bailout for a UC education?" demanded Sonia Diaz, a student.
Protesters disrupted the regents meeting three times before the fee vote, singing the civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome," chanting loudly and even swearing at the regents. A dozen students were among the 14 arrested.
"We're not criminals, the regents are!" cried one student before police escorted him and others out.
Berkeley protest
At Berkeley, students at Sproul Plaza at noon were greeted by feisty pickets chanting, "No cuts, no fees, education should be free" and several signs, including one that read, "Welcome to UC ." Protesters then left Sproul Plaza and marched through downtown Berkeley.
The march passed Berkeley High School, then took an unexpected detour into Berkeley City College, where the protesters disrupted classes by climbing flights of stairs and filling the school's atrium area. The crowd stayed for about 10 minutes before heading back toward the UC campus. No arrests were made.
Undergraduate fees are expected to rise to $10,302 next fall, with an incremental increase of 15 percent beginning in January. Graduate level fees will rise 18 to 32 percent.
Although the protesters emphasized the impact the new fees would have on the neediest students, about 30 percent of undergraduates will pay no fees at all. That's because the university's Blue and Gold program covers tuition, though not living expenses, for students from families earning up to $70,000 - just raised from $60,000.
The regents said they regret raising fees, which is likely to hit middle-class students the hardest.
Regent Eddie Island had never voted for a fee increase before, but said the budget crisis was so severe he had no choice.
"I understand the burden that fee increases place on students and their families," he told the board. "Some people around this table were poor and had very humble beginnings. But we've got to balance the budget. I believe the increases are now necessary."
Only student Regent Jesse Bernal opposed the fee increase. The graduate student from UC Santa Barbara abstained on the vote to recommend an increase in graduate professional degree fees.
Chronicle staff writer Justin Berton contributed to this report. Nanette Asimov reported from Los Angeles. Jill Tucker reported from Berkeley.
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Show AllPolice at the University of California, Los Angeles have arrested 14 demonstrators, mostly students, and dispersed many others who were protesting to a rise in tuition fees. (PRESSTV)
Republican Governor, Bankrupt and now this.
I'll dis-invest now.
It is a Republican's (and becoming ever evident a Democrat's as well) wet dream! State governments are more and more bankrupt by the minute. The American public has been bombarded the past 30 years demonizing taxes and blaming government for the problem. So the only solution is to slash services and raise fees.
I am an Idaho state employee, and we are looking at armageddon for our state services when the legislature returns this January. Our governor has said all options are on the table, except any that raise revenue. He actually stated (I'll paraphrase) - "I will not raise income tax on the higher income folks (over $50,000) because I do not want to start a class warfare."
I think I puked in my mouth when I read that statement - there has been 30+ years of class warfare and the elites have won.
Instead the plan he will unveil in January will include education cuts and just plain wiping out certain government agencies, as well as selling off some of Idaho's precious natural resources...and of course privatization of services. Basically, Wall Street's hit lists.
It has been a long struggle for the Corporistas, but I think they will continue to see the fruits of their labor over the next coming years.
Good health + good education = Good healthy smart country.
Are universities really offering a 'good education' now?
Ah, yes. The Berkeley crowd. Once the pantheon of student demonstrations against the Vietnam War, they could not get their iPods out of their a**es to protest UCB hiring John Woo (or any of the other outrageous acts of the Bush Administration).
But hit the entitled brats in their pocket books, the students get "nasty".
Sorry, no sympathy.
WTF
I agree. Apparently because these students realize that they do not have to deal with the trauma of a military draft, then the fact that Afghans are being slaughtered by American 500 lb. bombs is of absolutely no concern to them whatsoever. It would seem that the last thing these kids would ever chant on campus would be:
"Hey, Hey O-bomb-a
how many kids did you kill today?"
Upwards of 2500 students and other people turned out for a protest on Sproul Plaza on the Berkeley campus organized by the Berkeley Stop the War Coalition, against the war in Afghanistan in 2001. There were also later protests against the Iraq war.
2500 at a school the size of UCB? Thats sad. Its sad because you will see far more students at a campus concert of a really crappy band.
See my comment above, and read about the history of demonstrations on campus'. Universities are utterly failing in their role to foster independent creative thinkers that will contribute to advance society.
My daughter just called from inside the administration building that she and her fellow students are occupying. One of the students was tazered. Others are being threatened with expulsion. Some of these kids have been active in causes since childhood. We joke that my daughter's first protest was in the womb because I participated in a tenants' rights demonstration when I was pregnant with her. When she was in junior high school, she organized her friends to protest the appearance of Gov. Schwarzenegger at their school. The kids realized it was a cheap photo op for a governor who was no friend of education. Since then they have protested the war, environmental destruction and other societal ills. I think young people are like any of the rest of us. A small percentage are politically active and willing to take risks for what is right, and the rest just aren't.
Good for your daughter. We need many more people like her. Unfortunately, society is finding ways to marginalize activists, and distract the masses.
Back "in the days", there would be almost daily protests on campus, and the anti-war protests were too big for campus and spilled out into the surrounding city. We occupied the administration offices too, throwing out the staff, got arrested, and over much smaller things than a hike in fares. The military were NEVER allowed on campus. What was really interesting is that right-wing groups were non-existent, or at least too afraid to show their faces. My campus was quite militant, and on many occasions, the city police had to be called in to assist/save the campus police. We dealt with tear gas and heavily armored police who were sometimes mounted on horses.
I believe the UC "protests" were contained by campus police. A far cry from the days when universities were shining beacons on a hill.
Sympathize or not, what's wrong with people participating in power to resolve their own problems, the ones that they feel deeply?
We don't expect the Afghans who resist American invasion to protest the privatization of water in Bolivia, do we? Why suddenly expect that children and near-children of the American middle-class, mostly coddled with the sop of bourgeois parentage, Disney-ful history classes, and the familiar cascade of lies and pretence in broadcast media to protest whatever you or I might consider the issue du jour?
Any of you younger folks out there, beware of baby boomers idealizing the generation that protested in the 60's and 70's, if you do not already. Some great things happened, but, leaving few luminous individuals aside, we were as short-sighted and selfish a bunch of little prigs as any of you-all have ever come across.
When those protests raised for Vietnam, a lot of those students were due for the draft. They had watched friends, relatives, and lovers taken and killed or decimated in huge numbers, way more than the current conflicts.
Still it took years and years for any protest to get under way.
When those kids protect their pocket books, to whatever extent they manage, they protect the system that supplies all of us with services, including, despite all the difficulties and shortfalls, the judgement you seem to desire of them.
Have at, kids! You'll have to write your own public acknowledgement wa-a-ay after the fact, but that's the way it's always been.
maybe they can't pay yoo anymore as a result of this.
that would be a real shame huh? selfish little whiners!
this school is a shadow of its former self in regards
to all american issues. tell these kids to get a job
to help pay for their education if they can put their
cell pda or laptop down long enough to listen!
Tuitions too high? Then vote! (Young people have a poor voting record)
It is amazing to see so many friends take on tens of thousands of dollars of debt for education and accept it, just like they seem to accept the demise of social security. Democratic Party motto: lower your expectations.
You notice that neither the Democrats nor Republicans make a political issue out of this. Why? Because neither side wants to restore public higher education funding to levels our parents had. Of course, neither side calls the transfer of payment obligations to the student as a tax to the student. Result: a less educated and more indebted society.
Solution: Protests will work only if accompanied by political action. MSM may run protest videos for one night, then they forget it. Politicians will ignore you if they think you will vote for them regardless of their education policies, or also will ignore you if they think you won't vote. Time to vote independent to put real pressure on candidates. Time to become less apathetic.
Progressive101
I think an even better solution would be for the United States to adopt what so many Western European countries have done and that is to make higher education free for students.
Free or mostly free. I don't have a problem with that because of the benefit to society. I'm just advocating way to get to that point. Status quo doesn't work because school is getting more expensive.
There is NO such this as FREE, you do realize this, don't you?! Free means taking more money via taxes from working citizens. The Government does NOT create anything, hence it has no money - which means every time the government gives something away for "free" they are taking the money from the rest of us.
FreedomMan
You sound like a libertarian. Of course I realize that if university students did not have to pay for their education it would be because they or their parents had to pay higher taxes. That same obvious argument can be used in connection with most countries that implement universal health care. Yes, they will pay more in taxes but [now hold onto your computer chair] that then means that unlike the system in the United States their basic health care needs are met. I realize that that must come as a shock to you but it really is true. In addition, no citizen in those countries has ever had to declare bankruptcy because they could not pay their medical bills. In the U.S., those two statements, unlike in other advanced countries, end up being all too true
To paraphrase your own words, you do realize that if people pay more taxes they then receive more benefits from the state, don't you? As you say, the government is "taking money from the rest of us" but that money is being put to very good use. Despite your hand wringing, this concept should not be that difficult to grasp.
The motto of the libertarians: I don't give a damn about anyone else; I am only interested in me.
Of course any state and federal education funds requires taxation. Everytime my neighbor's children go to elementary school, I know the school is partially paid by my tax dollars. I don't get mad that my money that I've worked is being taken away from me because I know an educated society is a better society (less crime and better personnel resources for businesses). It used to be that a high schools education was sufficient to do well in society, now more and more it takes post high school education; therefore, I am for governement funded post-high school education. Our parents had it, and it benefited society. As citizens of a society we have certain shared responsibilities; we can't all build castles around ourselves to protect ourselves and guard our money.
The taxpayers receive the benefits from educating students.
Every transaction of which you you or any of us partake is different in a society with an educated population. That's a major condition for any technological industry, any communications events, any profession that requires licensing, and, for that matter, the rule of constitutional law, though Americans don't seem to be getting their money's worth on that one lately.
Government created by far the majority of the technology you upload data with, the roads you likely drive on, the schools in which you probably learned to read, and supplied any existent legal protection for any private property you might have.
Moreover, when the government educates anyone, well or poorly, the government creates a situation different than what existed before -- for better or for worse.
You had might as well tear up the roads, rip out the cable infrastructure, or shoot down communications satellites as defund education. Corporations will not fund education because it will be cheaper to hire educated employees from other corporations. And what's left of ideas will be in service to quarterly spreadsheets -- a more limited form than that of the most stultified bureaucracy.
The benefits you (and not you alone) get from other peoples' study are not free either. Those students put in long hours and forego income for years, sometimes decades.
Voters in California and unscrupulous administrators have progressively denied California students the support due their labors because the students have been told since their first years that they themselves are the primary beneficiaries of their own study, and because the kids are too young to know better.
They can learn, however. With this fresh insult, they may catch on.
I must admit to a bit of bemusement as I've recently watched a coworker put two sons into and through major, and expensive, 4-year schools (even paying inflated rent to house one close to campus, although home is only 18 miles away), only to have the kids accept retail positions after graduation because that's what's available...
perhaps real education cannot take place until pseudo-education has fallen...
what, exactly, are you looking to learn? That your political and financial and legal structures are corrupt? That the industrial revolution is killing everything? How to not buy and throw away stuff? What local plantlife is edible? That's the education we need, and it doesn't require thousands of dollars...
the entire school\work treadmill must stop...
Global Start Date: September 22, 2012...
Part of the problem is that graduating students really don't have a lot of work to look for. The US is no-longer a manufacturing economy; we are a service economy. If you study law, economics or science, there may be a job for you. The only other option is teaching.
Look at the jobs we *really* need. Manufacturing entrepreneurs, nano-engineers, green builders, teachers, nurses and skilled technicians to maintain what we already have (rather than buying "new" from China).
Part of this problem is a misunderstanding by almost ALL Americans is that "you have to have a college education to get a good job". This impression is pushed hard by the Gov and the media. Industry (what little we have left) doesn't care, as most incoming new staff have to be retrained anyway.
American education (and opportunities) is in the same toilet bowl as health care. When the lemmings wake up and realize this, we may have a shot of being a credible world leader.
Some Democrats are making an issue of it. John Garamendi did when he was running for Lieutenant Governor (Lt Gov of CA is a member of the UC Board of Regents). Also, Alberto Torrico, who is the state Assembly Majority Leader, has a bill, AB656, to impose an oil severance tax in order to fund UC and stop the the fee hikes.
Get ready for a lot more INFLATION, not only in University tuitions, but in the cost of basic living, like food, gasoline at the pumps etc.
The REAL reason is the Inflation of the money supply. The "federal" reserve keeps printing money out of nothing inflating the money supply, diluting the money's buying potential.
They have to keep paying for all the WAR's in the middle east, the WAR's OBAMA is beefing up. So they print more money and raise taxes via Inflation, the coming Copenhagen Treaty will bring forms of taxes, Carbon Tax, etc.
The ONLY solution is to END the FED and Stop all this crazy government spending, like funding these WAR's of Aggression (also wars of drug possession in Afghanistan) and closing down the 700 Military bases around the world.
That would be a good start.
Look around you folks, commercial real estate is out of control, FOR LEASE & FOR RENT signs are popping up everywhere, in BOTH, businesses and homes.
The College/University thing is going to start getting wild as well, this is just the start. Tuitions are rising, students will be graduating with insane loans to pay back, BUT, gues what, there will be NO JOBS to be had - why because we are in a JOBLESS RECOVERY, whatever that means. Because our government is dismantling our abilities to manufacture in this country and sending all the jobs offshore to third world countries.
So college students, after you pay your hiked tuition fees, and build up your four years of loans and graduate to a job flipping burgers at McDonalds or Wal-Mart sale person, have fun paying off those loans, eating $5 loafs of bread and $7 dollar gas prices at the pump.
Well, you will have one option - Join the Military - They NEED soldiers to continue these ENDLESS Wars in the Middle East!
Or, We The People can END the FED! YOU Choose!
"From the beginning of his administration as governor, Reagan vigorously fought for tuition in institutions of higher education, despite 101 years of a tuition-free public education system. He even stated, “Free tuition is not a right: it is a privilege of the deserving” (The Daily Bruin, Feb. 18, 1970). Obviously, Reagan had no concern for the lower-income families or middle-income families who did not qualify for financial aid, both of which generally struggled to support their childrens’ educations.
One also cannot ignore Reagan’s continued distaste for student demonstrators. In a press conference two weeks after his tuition proposal, he stated that tuition would help “get rid of undesirables. Those there to agitate and not to study might think twice before they pay tuition – they might think twice how much they want to pay to carry a picket sign” (The Daily Bruin, Feb. 18, 1970)."
http://beta.dailybruin.com/articles/2000/5/4/reagan-does-not-deserve-honor-/
Ofcourse all of these past fee increases and current fee increases are in violation of the Donohoe Act of 1960
"In 1960 the higher educational system underwent its most sweeping review to date, and the resulting report, known as the "California Master Plan for Higher Education," remains the blueprint for both operation and growth. The Master Plan is not a single document, but a collection of some sixty agreements between all parties in the system. Most importantly, many of the key recommendations of the plan were written into law in the Donohoe Act of 1960.
The overall purpose of the Master Plan is to coordinate expansion and prevent duplication and competition among the three higher education institutions, while maintaining universal, inexpensive access to postsecondary education for all Californians. It confirmed California's traditional policy of free tuition for state residents, with low fees for noninstructional services only."
http://www.answers.com/topic/california-higher-educational-system
If it is possible for the improving of technology to be a matter of national security, then this broad attack on a college education rises to that level, and the fight at UCB is of national concern. Scientific and other advances are not limited singularly to those made by students whose parents are wealthy. Getting a higher education is not always done with financial gain in mind -- not everyone thinks like a Republican. These people want the bail-out debt,(etc), to be paid by sick, lame, and uneducated taxpayers. They're just trying to shift their share of the blame, to be charitable about it.
Education is being cast in terms of individual right when it is in fact a national need.
Last time there were protests out there I asked here just what does California have in mind to end the problems. I see all those smart folks got real busy and the student protest are growing.
Don't take this the wrong way all of you smart Californians, if California is SCREWED, the entire country is not far behind. We're looking for California to solve the problems so that those solutions can be used elsewhere. C'mon. Chop chop.
PS Launch Pelosi and Boxer and any other incumbents
Oh yeah I forgot to add: All of you young people who showed up in droves for the change thang, I'd like to thank you in advance for subsidizing my healthcare costs for years long after I'm gone. And thanks too for funding my Social Security liabilities. I know it will be tough to pay for given the wage destruction we're seeing and the jobs destruction we'll continue to experience, so thanks again.
The UC system contributed $1.6 million to Obama's presidential campaign. According to www.opensecrets.org, UC was the largest single institutional donor to the Obama campaign in the 2008 election year. How could the UC regents justify this political donation given the educational cutbacks that were already occurring, and the dim forecast for the future? For years, the UCLA library has not even been able to afford subscriptions to important scientific journals. Who was responsible for the wasteful handout to Obama, which now the students are paying for? Was there any disclosure or debate prior to this payment? Were students involved in the decision-making process?
Oh look, the elites are putting the youngsters through the boot camp of vicious capitalism, like a fraternity initiation, painful, embarrassing, but ultimately "beneficial". Later, these youngsters will grow up to do the same to the next crop. When Pavlov rings his bell, these dogs will salivate for the throats of their fellow dogs, by design.
California is trying to fatten its coffers by squeezing the life out of these kids. Shame on them!
Education is second only to healthcare in the US. The sad part is, that our young are graduating ridden with debt and starting life already under the burden of financial responsibility. Almost worse is the fact that they're graduating with a substandard education. What a sad state of affairs! What this country is doing to its young is absolutly unconscionable and no doubt on purpose so they can draw more fresh meat to fight their wars for oil.
Let the enrollment at the major universities drop if it must. Many are already in the pocket of big corps anyway. As an alternative, you can seek a technical degree at a community college (which may be more affordable in many cases). It would be great to see the 'virtue' of self-reliance come back in vogue. Above all, learn how to educate yourself, your survival may depend on it. Learn how to grow and can your own food, make your own bread, and other basic survival skills.
Frugality is likely to be very important in the future, as well. If you aren't doing so already, spend only what you can pay off right away, and eschew buying things on credit where possible. When I was growing up, lay away was quite popular. Of course, that meant delayed gratification, but I enjoyed things more when I finally got them.
I see no virtue in self-reliance, and indeed, self-reliance is the rallying call of the extreme right. I see this as the major failing of America. "I'm all right. Screw you!".
How about the virtue of teamwork, and serving society, rather than self-serving?
I do agree with your comment on community colleges, one of the great undiscovered wonders in this country. And no argument with decreasing consumption.
Waaaay before the extreme right was even a concept, Ralph Waldo Emerson (a close friend of Henry David Thoreau) wrote an essay on self-reliance. Here are some excerpts:
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
“Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.”
Authentic self-reliance is very rare; it's certainly not practiced by the extreme right.
"How about the virtue of teamwork, and serving society, rather than self-serving?"
Being self-reliant need not negate cooperative efforts; one who is self-reliant in the right way means, among other things, he does not simply conform because it is the popular thing to do. He or she can make an excellent team player, but will not follow or give credence to false authority.
The community colleges have lost more funding than the universities.
Self education is great when it happens, and I doubt many of us will speak against home-baked bread. But more people will be more educated with help and cooperation than without.
If less educated people prove more independent, that will be news. Certainly there is a strong tide within all American communities to use education as indoctrination and as a filter to prevent independent individuals from occupying positions of responsibility. But it is little likely that elites will cut those parts of the system that filter before they cut those parts that educate.
If we must educate fewer people, even drawing straws would be a better way of deciding who gets educated than money.
"Regent Eddie Island had never voted for a fee increase before, but said the budget crisis was so severe he had no choice."
There is always a choice. How many times have we heard this excuse this year?
To anyone believing that the UC price hike comes straightforwardly and simply from the lack of funds in California, the interview on Democracy Now this morning, 11/20, may be instructive.