Taxes should help offset UC student fee increases

Have California’s leaders forgotten that education
benefits the entire state? You might think so if you heard
Chancellor Albert Carnesale’s grim prediction Thursday that
student fees may jump to between $15,000 and $20,000.

Carnesale said the fee increase would be needed for UCLA and
other UC campuses to recruit the best professors and graduate
students, and remain as first-rate programs.

A limited number of wealthy students would pay the huge
increase, while other students would be covered by various types of
financial aid packages.

Making wealthy students pay more for a UC education sounds good
and simple, but there are several serious problems with this
idea.

For one thing, the UC system was chartered as a public,
state-supported institution. Raising fees by over $13,000 would
close the gap between public and private schools. Lower-income
students would become totally dependent on financial aid, and
higher-income students might simply opt for a genuine private
institution.

And if enough wealthy students decided to avoid the UC, who
would be left to pay the new fee? Would the ability to pay become a
factor in who gets admitted? Could private schools offer better aid
deals?

And there are many more questions about how rapidly fees would
rise.

Last year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the UC leadership
agreed to a compact that included the promise that “fees
would go up no more than 10 percent per year.”

With a 10 percent yearly increase, it would take nine years for
fees to rise from the current $6,600 to Carnesale’s $15,000
estimate. It would take 12 years to hit his $20,000
“ceiling.”

But even assuming the fee increase would occur incrementally
over a decade, few Californians would see their income rise as
much. Not everyone is a member of the wealthy investment class. The
average U.S. family has seen their income rise only 3.9 percent per
year over the last 12 years. So most families would be forced to
rely more and more on financial aid after each fee increase. How
long could such a trend continue?

Meanwhile, the UC would have to admit large numbers of the
wealthy families that could afford the 10 percent annual increase.
And the involvement of the federal government and private donations
would likely become more critical than ever.

But the UC funding stream should be secure regardless of how
many Rockefellers or Trumps are admitted.

The best plan would spread the funding burden out among all
Californians. UCLA and UC Berkeley have 50,000 undergraduates,
while California has a workforce of 15,000,000 (and even more
taxpayers). It would cost each taxpayer less than $44 a year to
cover the proposed increase at UCLA and Berkeley.

And if the state is really committed to a quality public
education system, why not spread out both the costs and the
benefits of education? It would cost each taxpayer less than $142
to fund the increase at every UC campus.

The UC system should be open to all Californians, regardless of
their income level. And all Californians must be willing to assume
a collective responsibility when it comes to funding higher
education.