After the UC Board of Regents approved an additional 9.6 percent increase in student fees, the deans at both UCLA and UC Berkeley’s law schools announced last week that the schools will issue scholarships to each student to cover the increase.
These emergency scholarships will award each student a total of $1,068 — the exact amount of the most recent fee increase.
The board voted July 14 to increase student fees systemwide for the fall semester by 9.6 percent on top of an 8 percent increase they approved last November. The proposal to increase fees came after the UC was hit with an additional $150 million cut from the state in June, over and above a $500 million cut in March, bringing the total to $650 million.
Rachel Moran, dean of the UCLA School of Law, announced Wednesday that law school students will receive a scholarship in the amount of the fee increase for the 2011-12 school year.
Christopher Edley, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, also announced to law school students Thursday that they will receive scholarships to cover the increase for the coming year.
“This increase is just too much, and it came too late,” Edley said in an email to students. “I am optimistic that these added financial aid costs can be offset by increased alumni donations as the economy recovers, and by continuing efforts to hold down less-than-essential expenses.”
Edley said in the email that he is confident that fees at the law school will not need to increase faster than they do at other top-tier law schools. He added that tuition next year for the school will be comparable to those of the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia and below that of “many of our private competitors.”
“This state’s retreat has been most acute at the professional schools,” he said in the email. “Bitter though this pill is for us to swallow, it does have one benefit: although we have less remaining state subsidy, we have more financial flexibility and more autonomy than do other academic units within the UC system.”
Though in the email Edley said he cannot make guarantees regarding future tuition levels, he vowed that the school would maintain its reputation regardless.
“Berkeley Law will remain a financially-competitive, intellectually-luminous, professionally cutting-edge, culturally-superior, and all around fabulous law school community in the decades to come,” he said in the email. “Count on it.”
Allie Bidwell is the news editor.
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Chancellor Robert J Birgeneau ($500,000 salary) displaces Californians
qualified for public university education at Cal. for a $50,600 payment and a foreign
passport. Need for transparency at University
of California Berkeley
has never been so clear.
UC Berkeley, ranked # 70 Forbes, is not increasing
enrollment. Birgeneau accepts $50,600
FOREIGN students at the expense of qualified Californians.
UC Regent Chairwoman Lansing and President Yudof agree to discriminate
against instate Californians for foreigners. Birgeneau, Yudof, Lansing need to answer to Californians.
Opinions make a difference; email UC Board of Regents [email protected]
Remember this brouhaha?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1591400/posts
A San Francisco judge has ordered the University of California to pay
$33.8 million to tens of thousands of students whose fees were unfairly
raised.
… Superior Court Judge James Warren called
the university’s breach of contract “clear and unambiguous.”
“The terms of this promise were not vague or indefinite,” Warren wrote
in the 27-page opinion. “A reasonable person would be entitled to rely
on the university’s representation that the professional-degree fee
would remain the same throughout his or her enrollment.”
Regardless of the final outcome of the lawsuit, it probably taught UC
officials a lesson in timing and promises, said Patrick Murphy, a
professor and higher-education finance expert at the University of San
Francisco.
“I think this is going to go down as a ‘Good God, let’s not do this again’ thing,” Murphy said.
You are confusing the UC mandatory tuition and fees with the judgement on the UC professional fees.
Like with an addiction,
admitting you have a problem is the first step toward correcting it. University
of California Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau
($500,000 salary) has forgotten that he is a public servant, steward of the
public money, not overseer of his own fiefdom.
Recruits
(using California
tax $) out of state, foreign $50,000 tuition students who displace qualified sons,
daughters of Californians from public university
education.
Spends
$7,000,000 + for consultants to do his & vice chancellors work
(prominent
East Coast University accomplishing same 0 cost).
University accrues $150 million of
inefficiencies over his 8 year reign.
Pays ex Michigan governor
$300,000 for lectures.
In procuring $3,000,000 consultants failed
to receive proposals from other firms.
Latino
enrollment drops while out of state jumps 2010.
Ranking : QS
academic falls below top ten
Tuition to
Return on Investment drops below top10.
NCAA places
basketball program on probation: absence institutional control.
These
are not isolated examples: it’s all shameful. There is no justification for such
actions by a steward of the public trust. Absolutely none.
Birgeneau’s practices will
not change. University of California Board of Regents Chair Sherry Lansing must
do a better job of vigorously enforcing oversight by President Yudof than has
been done in the past to Birgeneau who treat the university as his fiefdom.
Until demonstrable action is swiftly applied to
chancellors by the UC Board of Regents/President Yudof, the University of
California shouldn’t come to the Governor or public for support for any taxes, additional
funding.
I
have 35 years’ consulting experience; have taught at UC Berkeley, where I
observed the culture & the way senior management works. No, I was not fired
or downsized & have not solicited contracts from Cal.
This is misleading, because the scholarship does not cover the increase in Professional Degree Fees, which are on top of tuition… (and much higher than tuition itself)
Uh, Guest, what would be the point of the law school increasing the fee that they charge (the PDF) and then just giving it right back to the students?
The law school is protecting its students from the increase the Regents imposed.
Because the PDF increase was already approved a while ago as part of a multi-year plan. So now, they are in effect softening the blow with these fellowships, yes. But the total tuition and fees burden will still increase for law students.