Voice • Hironao
Okahana, Associated Students, Inc.
vice president, speaks on behalf of
students from all 23 California State
Universities who showed up to the Thursday
CSU Board of Trustees meeting to protest
the 8 percent fee increase on tuition.
Tracey Roman / Online Forty-Niner
CSU student budget protest
ends in defeat
By
Kyle Cavaness
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
Over 200 students gathered from all 23 California State University campuses
at the Office of the Chancellor Thursday to protest the proposed 8 percent
student fee increase which was later approved by the CSU Board of Trustees.
The gathering was prompted by the words of Student Trustee Corey Jackson, who
told the California State Student
Association’s (CSSA) Board of Directors this month he was planning to
vote yes on the budget increase.
“
I’m not interested in symbolism,” Jackson said. “By voting
no [with no student presence], no one else is going to know besides the people
[on the board].”
During their meeting, Jackson said the CSSA Board made a deal with him that
if students from all 23 campuses were present at the Board of Trustees meeting,
he would vote no on the fee increase. As the word went out to all of the CSUs
via the CSSA, students began planning their trips to Long Beach.
All 23 schools attended the meeting, some driving seven or eight hours from
their respective campuses to protest the increase and make good on the Student
Association’s end of the bargain. Local schools, such as Long Beach and
Fullerton, had larger numbers of students in attendance to share their support
and their opinions.
“
When I started at Long Beach State, I was paying $844 a semester,” said
Ben Mendez, a member of Associated Students, Inc. President Jamie Pollock’s
cabinet, and a student currently working toward his credential. “The
fact that
I’m paying almost twice as much now is [upsetting]. I don’t want
to leave a legacy of that sort.”
Once the meeting was underway, the Board presented the 2006-07 budget, which
included a breakdown of the increases to student fees over the last several
years, and explained various financial shortages in the CSU system, which led
to the need for the student fee increase.
The proposed 8 percent increase will increase student fees by $204 a year,
or $102 a semester. Also, the Board showed statistics comparing the CSU system
to comparable universities across the country, which showed its fees are still
significantly lower than comparable institutions.
“
CSU fees are about the lowest in the entire country, even with the fee increase,” said
Colleen Bentley-Adler, director of Public Affairs for the CSU system and Office
of the Chancellor.
Once the board’s presentation was finished, they heard statements from
both the students and the California Faculty Association (CFA). The CFA presented
information to the Board explaining how fee increases were making a CSU education
no longer affordable, and that 16 of the 23 CSU campuses were not meeting their
enrollment targets.
Also, according to the CFA, undergraduate fees have increased 76 percent since
2002, not including the proposed increase for 2006-07. CFA President Barbara
E. Kerr called for the Board to vote against the fee increase, saying the Trustees
need to stand united before the state legislators in order to get the CSUs
the money they need to continue to provide a quality education.
A handful of students also made speeches before the Board in an attempt to
prevent the increase.
Hironao Okahana, CSULB’s Associated Students, Inc. vice president, told
the Board students were “facing a huge injustice [with this] outrageous
fee increase.”
Others pointed out students’ loss of faith in the CSU system due to so
many fee increases, how more and more students were either dropping out or
not attending and how these losses will affect all of California, especially
its already-struggling economy.
Before the Finance Committee voted on the budget, Jackson had the final word
for the students, speaking to his fellow Board members on behalf of all students,
both present and elsewhere.
Jackson said, “From now on I will stop calling student fees ‘student
fees, and I will start calling them ‘student taxes’Öbecause
that’s what they are, and so everyone will know what has happened here
today.”
Jackson also called for the message of the Board of Trustees to echo that of
the students and faculty in calling for more money from the state legislators,
whatever the outcome of the vote.
Once the budget was approved in committee – with Jackson the only dissenting
vote, as he promised – the full Board voted it through to the State Department
of Finance, despite more impassioned pleas by students, some nearly brought
to tears. Before the final vote, Trustee Robert Foster spoke to the students
in the audience, explaining the position of the Board and why he felt the budget
was justified.
“
We have to preserve quality as well as access and affordability,” Foster
said. “We want the degree that you are working for, paying for and going
into debt for to be worth something [when you graduate].”
Foster expressed his gratitude to the students present, as well as his sympathies
for their plight. Foster also repeated Jackson’s call to take their grievances
to Sacramento, promising, “I will do everything I canÖto help mitigate
this fee increase.”
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