The Undergraduate Students Association Council unanimously passed a resolution Nov. 19 opposing a tuition hike for nonresident students.

The UC Board of Regents voted Nov. 14 to approve an item recommending increased tuition for nonresident students by $3,402. The hike – which will only apply to students enrolling at the University after this academic year – follows a previous tuition increase of $762 per year for nonresident students in 2019.

USAC International Student Representative Syed Tamim Ahmad, the primary sponsor of the resolution, said the tuition hike would place a financial strain on many students and inhibit student body diversity.

“It’s going to disproportionately affect students from lower-income backgrounds and those from countries with weaker currencies,” said Ahmad, a third-year physiological science student from India.

Ahmad added that the University should be transparent about where the revenue generated from the tuition increase will go after the regents increased spending on salaries for campus chancellors and senior officials within the UC Office of the President.

The regents approved a 2024-2025 salary increase of 4.2% for level one senior management group members – including the CEO of UCLA’s medical center – and a total of $1,317,440 for seven UC campus chancellors in September.

General Representative Diego Emilio Bollo, who co-sponsored the resolution, said the UC also has investments in defense manufacturing and alleged that this led to the increase in nonresident tuition – redirecting the financial burden onto students.

However, the University netted $1.3 billion in profit from its investments in the S&P 500 – a stock market index that tracks the share price of 500 large companies, including weapons manufacturers – during the 2023-2024 fiscal year, according to an August press release from UCOP.

Bollo, a third-year labor studies and political science student, said the council hopes to meet the resolution’s demands – including exploring alternate methods of revenue generation – by meeting with the regents as often as possible.

In an emailed statement, the board of the Out of State Student Association at UCLA said an increase in nonresident supplemental tuition would increase out-of-state students’ financial burden.

“If the tuition increase was to be passed, our hope would be that out-of-state students would be provided with greater access to financial aid and scholarships,” OSSA said in the statement.

General Representative Tommy Contreras, another co-sponsor of the resolution, said he believes there are ways for the UC to address its budget concerns without raising the tuition for nonresident students.

“It is clear that the UC’s priorities are, once again, not in line with the needs of the students of the University of California but rather on continuing to be aligned with the bureaucratic nature of the UC system itself,” Contreras said.

Ahmad also said there are alternative funding options for the University, such as requesting a larger budget from the state government or making use of its $29.5 billion endowment. However, the state has recently heard proposals for a $271 million reduction to its budget, which may make requests for more state funding challenging.

In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the UC said the University intended to increase funding for its operations without increasing the cost of attendance for current students and California residents in anticipation of the state budget cut.

“UC provides world-class educational opportunities to students from all over the world, helping create the workforce of the future and generating research and more patents than any other university,” the statement said.

[Related: UC Regents approve new spending plans, review financial performance]

Ahmad added that USAC will expand its advocacy efforts to ensure greater financial transparency with students and hold the UC accountable to ensure the University invests the increase in tuition on basic resources for students.

“We’re going to make sure that an increase in tuition results in something productive for the student community, rather than it being nothing for the students,” Ahmad said.

Contreras said the council will continue to put pressure on the UC Regents to find alternative sources of funding, adding that USAC External Vice President Javier Nuñez-Verdugo will lobby the University and the state to implement a different solution.

“Out-of-state students bring an invaluable diversity and perspective to our UC campuses, enriching the academic and cultural fabric of our institutions,” Contreras said. “With every tuition hike, we are pushing these students out, reducing our campuses to a level of diversity that is not as large as it could or should be.”