With many California State University students, faculty and staff opposing the system’s proposed 6% annual tuition hike over the next five years, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis met with student leaders at Cal State Los Angeles on Friday, July 28 to discuss anticipated impacts of the embattled increase.
“My first response was shock, and mostly because the trustees did a study on how much money they need to operate the system — which is valid — but they have not studied what the impact of our system as a whole is going to be on increasing tuition,” Kounalakis said, in an interview after the roundtable concluded.
The CSU Board of Trustees’ Committee on Finance weighed the proposal on Tuesday, July 11, and decided to send it to the full board for final approval. CSU officials say is necessary to help offset a $1.5 billion funding gap.
The board will likely hear the item in September, though the date won’t be confirmed until the agenda for that month’s meeting is released.
A CSU workgroup first identified the massive funding gap in a nearly 70-page report released in May. It found that the system only has enough money to pay for about 85% of the actual costs of education, institutional and academic support and student services at all of its 23 campuses.
That’s largely because the CSU’s two primary revenue sources — funding from California’s budget and tuition — haven’t kept up with the ever-increasing costs of operating the nation’s largest state university system, the report said. About 60% of the CSU’s operating budget is funded by the state; the remaining 40% comes from tuition revenue.
Kounalakis sits on all three governing boards of California’s public higher education system – UC, CSU and Community Colleges. The discussion was held at Cal State Los Angeles on Friday, July 28.
“They assume that there will be no impact, that is shocking to me because we know that our students already struggle to afford it,” Kounalakis said….
Read the full article here