Tuition hike would add stability, officials say

A STUDENT rally is planned Wednesday at UCLA as a regents meet to vote on whether to increase tuition.

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nancial aid and allows parents to plan long term for education costs.

The original program, which was passed four years ago and expires next year, also faced strong opposition. But UC says that it has resulted in lower tuition rates compared with tying costs strictly to inflation.

Leaders say growing enrollment coupled with financial strains — UC recently requested a $130-million, zero-interest loan from the state to make up for lost state funds — made the annual increases more urgent.

Instructional spending per student has decreased when compared with levels 20 years ago, UC said. The student-to-faculty ratio has worsened. Staff support for students and faculty has not kept up with enrollment, and salaries for tenure-track faculty lag behind university goals. In addition, campuses are grappling with backlogs of deferred maintenance.

Cain Diaz, UC’s associate vice president for budget analysis and planning, said in an interview Monday that renewing the plan will provide more stability and predictability not only to students but also to the university budget.

Before the stability program, he said, “we had gone more than a decade where there was really only one or two years of an increase. Prior to that, it was very inconsistent.”