CALIFORNIA BUSINESS MINUTE
UC Rising
11-24-09
Hi, I am Tim Johnson and welcome to the California Business Minute.
In September, the president of the University of California system, Mark Yudof
announced to the UC Regents a pending tuition hike. The proposed increase
presented last week was an increase of 32 percent over the next two years to
bridge a $505 million budget gap that has come after two years of previous cost
cutting measures and subsequent legislative actions cutting state general fund
support hence forcing the increase caused by the loss of revenues caused by the
recession.
One day after the decision was made by US system officials, student protests against
the tuition hike began at campuses, including Berkeley, UCLA, Davis and UC Santa
Cruz. Not since the demonstrations voicing opposition of the Vietnam War has
California been witness to such student demonstrations of this magnitude. Students
became very agitated and many arrests were made at the campuses, but no reports
of serious injuries were identified during scuffles with campus police and other
law enforcement agencies.
The average cost of undergraduate tuition will go to $10,000 a year. Additionally,
there were also individual increases for specific professional graduate degree
programs.
Meanwhile, classes went on as the protests continued for three days, however they
abated probably due to football games, specifically The Big Game between California v.
Stanford and Thanksgiving break.
While unfortunate for all involved,it appears lessons have been learned on the
importance of an education. It is a locational advantage of the Golden State
that need to be preserved to keep California competitive. And apparently, as the
students showed, its worth fighting for.
I am Tim Johnson and this has been the California Business Minute.
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