Cal State Announces Fee Hikes

The Cal State system is coming clean on the size of the tuition hikes that are needed to replace the gigantic cuts in the Governor's budget: possible tuition increases of 20% in the fall, on top of the 10% already approved, or a 30% increase in one year. Further enrollment reductions are also being considered.

The chancellor's announcement, at a special board session called to grapple with a funding shortfall of at least $584 million projected for the Cal State system when the state budget is finally issued, came after Cal State faculty members bitterly denounced the trustees and Reed. The professors said the Cal State leaders had failed to fight hard enough for new taxes or other fiscal measures to forestall precipitous cost-cutting.

"The policy of appeasement has been a failure," California Faculty Assn. President Lillian Taiz told Reed and the board.

The only good news here is that open discussion of tuition increases on the order of 30% coupled with reduced access will allow state taxpayers to at least understand what repeated state budget cuts are actually doing, and what it will really cost them.

Meanwhile, wheelchair protesters were cited at the Capitol for "failure to disperse."


This Sac Bee coverage of the political deadlock is better than the norm because it tries to include public opinion.