Poly fees to go up by $252 per year
SLO Tribune 3/15/07
The increase is 10 percent of the CSU base fee, resulting in a $2,772 annual fee. But individual campuses have additional fees, and the $252 increase will bring total fees at Cal Poly to $4,602 for the 2007-08 school year.
Fees do not include room, board, books and other items associated with the cost of living at school.
The CSU system is the nation’s largest four-year university system, with more than 400,000 students. Student fees comprise about 25 percent of the overall CSU budget, according to the trustees.
In 2005, the CSU trustees adopted a five-year plan to make salaries for all employees more competitive with comparable institutions. The plan calls for salaries to be increased incrementally each year over the next five years.
But as the fees are increasing, CSU faculty members are deciding whether to strike. The faculty union believes the faculty pay raises are not on par with the cost of living, while larger raises are granted to administrators.
Voting on whether to strike has already taken place at most of the other 23 campuses, but Cal Poly is among the last seven where faculty members are voting this week. If the strike is approved, it could begin as soon as the negotiating period ends later this month.
In addition to the trustees’ decision on undergraduate programs, fees for qualified credential programs will increase $294 per year, and graduate fees will increase by $312 per year.
With the proposed increase, undergraduate fees have gone up 94 percent since 2002.
Regents of the University of California also tentatively voted Wednesday to raise undergraduate fees, over the vigorous objections of students.
A committee of the UC’s governing Board of Regents voted to raise undergraduate fees by 7 percent, bringing total annual fees to about $7,300, a decision that was to go before the full board later Wednesday.
System officials say they need the increased revenue to maintain quality and say that even with the increases, their fees are lower than peer institutions in other states.
But students say the costs of living in California are high, putting the total annual bill of attending college out of reach for many.