The UC Regents made the right decision in approving the 32% fee hike, a necessary move to protect the integrity of the university system amidst massive budget shortfalls and reflective of the real market realities for an education of the UC System's caliber, specifically for UCLA and UC Berkeley. In fact, there are next to zero similar institutions in the world that offer Berkeley's quality of education at the post-fee raise price.
Despite elitist Berkeley and UCLA students snootily declaring themselves more "educated" and "aware" of the world around them than the common folk, the Regents and common folk happen to be grounded in practical and economic reality. Meanwhile, the spoonfed socialists at Berkeley are under the assumption that money to fund their high caliber education is just magically pulled out of thin air.
So what is the economic reality?
With the current fee structure (pre-32% increase), massive government funding, and ample donations, incoming revenue to fund the University's operations is not sufficient to cover costs.
In order to correct that imbalance, you are faced with three options: reduce operating costs, increase government funding, or increase the below market value tuition.
- Reduce Operating Costs: As it is, the University's compensation for professors is well below market value and below that offered by many comparable institutions. If you continue to decrease that compensation as well as the compensation of other professionals at UC, you run the risk of losing more talent to other universities with better compensation, devaluing the quality of a UC Education. Where the UC System could reduce costs is by slashing their incompetent bureaucracy and overpaid unskilled labor -- but the UC system is a government system, after all. It's gonna be a cold day in hell when the bureaucracy is reduced, and hell on earth with the violent public sector unions if anybody tries. The ugly irony in that all this is the nutheads that complain and protest about their fee increases are likely to be the same ones who complain and protest about the unionized state gardner being compensated poorly at $25/hr with a hefty retirement package at 45 (also see attached article about Berkeley students protesting laid off janitors).
- Increase Government Funding: In case you haven't noticed, the state of California is faced with the largest budget shortfall in its history, thanks to Democratic-liberalism run amok. The hallmark of liberalism, a massive scope of social programs with unproductive wildly overcompensated incompetent bureaucrats overseeing them, has finally catapulted California into a near state of bankruptcy. As a result, there is no state money left to be further alloted to UC. Try and cut another state program and move that funding to UC, and watch the fight the unions and interests of that cut program will put up. Of course the question becomes, "How about raising taxes?" When companies and high income earners are fleeing California at an alarming rate, you cannot afford to continue driving them away. The whole crux of conservative economic reasoning is that when you drive too many people away with massive taxes and regulation, you no longer have a tax base to draw from and the system collapses -- including the UC System.
- Increase Below Market Value Tuition: As it stands, the 32% higher tuition is far below the market value of the education provided. Assuming the raise would make a Berkeley (or UC) education unsustainable for at most 1-5% of prospective students, just slot the next 1-5% on the admissions/waiting list in. It's the price the system has to pay to preserve quality and not reach a state of utter financial collapse. To note, there are folks that would pay $100K a year for their kids to go to Berkeley and donate a building on top of that. Yes, that's the exception and not the rule, but $7,500/year versus $10,000/year is not really going to break anybody's back. Will the loans become larger and will you or your parents have to give up a little something more if finances are tight? Sure, but that's life. If you get into a car accident and pay $2500 more per year in insurance, will you go protest outside the insurance company? No, cause that's life. We live in the United States, where nothing is free and nobody is entitled to anything -- and coincidentally, we have the greatest standard of living and quality of life in the entire world among all social classes. Oh, the injustice! And in case you didn't figure it out, option three presented here is indeed the only feasible solution.
Despite overwhelming evidence that this fee raise needed to happen, economic reality is not something UC students are concerned with in their socialist utopia. I would ask them to step out of their bubble and furnish solutions to the massive UC budget crisis that does not involve raising their tuition. Let me tell you, there are few realistic ones that accomodate their leftist worldview. There is one tax I support however, and that is a 95% tax on left-wing activist celebrities to fund the UC System -- somehow, I have a feeling a lot more movies would be made in Louisiana.
Context Article from the AP:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9C3DOT00&show_article=1
Image Source:
http://laist.com/attachments/la_zach/ucprotests.jpg
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