<p>A 5% per year tuition increase has been proposed by the UC system</p>
<p>Your thoughts?</p>
<p>Gag…just another way to fund their bloated and abused Blue and Gold promise. </p>
<p>Napolitano and Brown playing chicken. Won’t happen, I’m guessing. Maybe just setting up to get Prop 30 renewed before 2016.</p>
<p>Unbelievable. When I was at Berkeley, ANYONE could afford tuition. My best friend was the 7th child of a Dutch Indonesian refugee family. She could work in SF part-time and go to school full-time. This tuition increase is sad if it’s realized.</p>
<p>The UC tuition is getting ridiculous. Sure it’s super for those who have incomes less than $80k, but many 2 earner households exceed that amount, yet can’t afford to send their kids to a UC unless they commute…and their tuition is subsidizing another student’s tuition who is living on campus. </p>
<p>Both Cal Grants and Blue and Gold need to be re-examined. The UCs are a very good deal for low and modest income students. They’re over-priced for those who don’t get those grants. </p>
<p>A necessity to help fund the new “middle-class scholarship” that my son was unexpectedly awarded this year. A whopping $246. (I’m being very sarcastic just in case that is not apparent.)</p>
<p>If this is a go, it means an almost 28% increase over 5 years. The UC’s are truly becoming an “elite” system, not only academically, but financially. It is sad that the State is forcing out the middle class. Soon the UC’s will be comprised of only the very wealthy and the very poor. Our D was able to go to Penn State from California at a fraction of the cost we would have paid for a UC. Very sad.</p>
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<p>Seems like the usual distortion of the term “middle class” around here. Here are the actual median household and family incomes in California:
<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_locations_by_income”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_locations_by_income</a>
Statewide median household income is about $62k, while statewide median family income is about $70k.</p>
<p>As usual, it is the high income people who don’t feel high income who are complaining.</p>
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<p>Merit scholarships? Penn State is rather expensive otherwise (and is known for poor need-based financial aid, even for Pennsylvania residents).</p>
<p>Depends on the school, family income, and area of interest. In-state for Cal(/UCLA/UCSD) is not overpriced compared to full-pay at USC, for instance (or many privates, IMO). Same can be said for a few other UCs and some privates.</p>
<p>As for PSU OOS costing a fraction of a UC, how was that possible? Merit aid? Fin aid? PSU isn’t known to be generous with fin aid, and their list price is high.</p>
<p>@Knoxpatch: those days are long gone at pretty much any school unless you get a lot of merit/fin aid.</p>
<p>My understanding is that the actual request is 5% a year for 5 years.
So, I guess by the 6th year, the tuition would have gone up by 28%.
I need to tell my boss I need a raise like that.</p>
<p>I think UCs need to adjust their merit scholarships.
It does not seem to consider the parents’ incomes into consideration at all.
I don’t think merit scholarships for high income families make any sense.</p>
<p>BTW, I think UC’s tuition is still attainable for middle class provided you save for it.</p>
<p>One of the reasons Napolitano says they need the tuition increases in part so they can provide places for another 5000 students in UCs.</p>
<p>As a Californian, I’m in favor of adding 5000 more students to the UCs. We have a big state and our population is growing. But there is absolutely no justification that current students should be paying for that expansion. That’s preposterous!</p>
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The UC’s are truly becoming an “elite” system, not only academically, but financially. It is sad that the State is forcing out the middle class. Soon the UC’s will be comprised of only the very wealthy and the very poor. </p>
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<p>The upper-middle class is being frozen out. Their incomes are too high for aid, but the cost is often unaffordable, especially if you have more than one child in college.</p>
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<p>Can you clarify? PSU is lousy with OOS need-based and isn’t really known for merit. Your child would have had to have been given quite a hefty sum for the net cost to be a “fraction of the cost” of a UC. Isn’t PSU over $45k per year? And an instate UC is about $31k? </p>
<p>Was your child given some kind of talent/athletic award? Is your child is SHC and is more merit associated with that these days?</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids: Depends on how you define upper-middle class, I guess. My take is that the no-merit-aid privates are freezing out the upper-middle class since they won’t be able to get fin aid at those places, but if you’re making over $200K, in-state tuition at a UC (or any public), which is still roughly half that of an elite private or less, should be affordable.</p>
<p>UC would hardly be alone in list price tuition increases in that range:</p>
<p><a href=“Trends in Higher Education – College Board Research”>Trends in Higher Education – College Board Research;
<p>Of course, that does not necessarily make such increases desirable, particularly for the “middle class that won’t get financial aid” (i.e. 90th to 99th percentile family income range).</p>
<p>I am fine with the increase but I think students of families with income between $80K and $110K should have some financial aid. The UC also should count all family assets when considering FA application. Using the FAFSA alone is not enough. Many families with low paper income and high asset value receive FA now.</p>
<p>On second thought, I want to have free tuition for all students. But they must be academically capable. All colleges should have 90% graduation rate in 4 years.</p>
<p>@coolweather, my understanding is that kids from CA families making between 80K and 110K <em>do</em> get fin aid. Considering that all tuition is paid for if your income is below 80K, I rather doubt that it jumps from no-tuition to full-tuition when you cross the 80K level.</p>
<p>Right now, 55% of UC students go for free. If the UCs would stop paying for free room and board, all students could go tuition free, either by commuting or by taking classes online. </p>
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<p>Incorrect. UC net price calculators indicate that a living-on-campus student from even the lowest income/wealth families will see a net price of $8,500 to $10,000 on need-based financial aid (and those from families with higher income will have some EFC added to that). It is highly doubtful that 55% of UC students are getting Regents’ or other merit scholarships in the amounts needed to get the net price to $0.</p>
<p>Ucbalumnus,</p>
<p>I’m surprised at you! You are not a “UC Advocate” donor alumnus? If you were, you would have received Janet Napolitano’s letter that was referenced in the OP, in which she specifically states:</p>
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<p>My emphasis added.</p>