Governor's office defends CSU tuition hike
North County Times 1/20/07
The tuition hike would increase annual fees at Cal State San Marcos, one of 23 campuses in the Cal State system, from $3,092 to $3,344.
Faculty members at the San Marcos campus will participate in a campus rally Monday to protest the governor's new budget and the fact that they have been working under an expired labor contract for 19 months.
The governor's proposed $143.4 billion budget for 2007-08 was introduced Jan. 10. In May, it will be revised, and the final budget is typically adopted just before the new fiscal year begins on July 1, or shortly afterward.
Members of the system's faculty union have criticized the plan for including the tuition hike and for failing to address the fact that employees at 20 universities deemed comparable to the Cal State system make an average of 12 percent more than Cal State employees.
In addition to explaining the reasoning behind those decisions, Palmer said this week that the proposed budget includes a 4 percent increase for general state university operations, which would climb from $2.88 billion to nearly $3 billion. The increase would amount to nearly $109 million.
The Cal State system's operations budget was increased 3 percent in 2005-06 and 2006-07 based on the Compact for Higher Education, an agreement the governor forged with leaders of the Cal State and University of California systems.
Overall Cal State funding would increase from nearly $4 billion in the current fiscal year to just over $4.2 billion in 2007-08, thanks to a projected $123 million increase in tuition revenue. The $123 million increase will come from an expected 2.5 percent increase in enrollment and the higher tuition.
Tuition revenue climbed from $1.1 billion in 2004-05 to $1.2 billion in 2005-06 because of an 8 percent hike in 2005-06, but tuition revenue increased only slightly in 2006-07 because tuition was not raised.
The proposed tuition hike for 2007-08, which would affect students at Cal State San Marcos and 22 other California state university campuses, has been criticized by students and members of the faculty union. They have called the hike a selective tax increase on students.
But Palmer said this week that the decision was one of many aimed at getting the deficit down to zero.
"Since the goal this year was balance, we had to go the extra mile," Palmer said.
Cal State trustees approved an 8 percent tuition hike for the 2006-07 school year, but the governor "bought out" that increase in January 2006 using $54 million in unexpected general fund revenue, said Palmer.
"We had the resources to buy out the increase last year, but we can't do that again," Palmer said.
Palmer said the increase is part of a plan to slowly and steadily increase the system's tuition at predictable rates so that parents and students can plan for the future.
The governor has agreed to increase tuition no more than 10 percent in any school year, said Palmer. Because there were hikes of greater than 10 percent in some recent years, the 2007-08 hike will bring tuition increases since 2001-02 to a cumulative 94 percent.
Cal State university faculty leaders have also criticized the governor's proposed budget for failing to reduce salary lags between system employees and their counterparts at comparable schools nationwide.
Those same concerns have been raised by Cal State Chancellor Charles Reed. The system asked the governor for an extra 1 percent for its operating budget in 2007-08 to help reduce the gap, but that increase was not included in the proposed budget.
Palmer said the governor is concerned about the salary gaps, but he said the issue needs to be studied more closely before any action is taken.
"We are aware of the issue and we are taking a look at the data," said Palmer, referring to salary comparisons compiled by the California Postsecondary Education Commission. "We want to base our analysis not just on salary alone, but on total compensation, which includes benefits, health care and other things."