By Linda Fimland, Daily Forty-Niner May 12, 1997
A proposal designed to freeze student fees until the year 2000 is one step closer to approval.
The proposal, AB 1318, sponsored by Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, passed the Assembly Appropriations Committee Wednesday.
"The passage of this proposal is a huge victory for California's working families," said Assemblywoman Denise Moreno Ducheny, chair of the assembly budget committee and author of the bill.
"Not only will AB 1318 halt student fee hikes until the year 2000, it will set a rational and predictable fee schedule for future generations," she said.
If passed, the proposal would freeze student fees at the California State University, University of California and the California Community College systems until the year 2000.
After the year 2000, fees would not rise faster than the increase in personal income from the prior year, said officials from the Lt. Governor's office.
Although student fees have remained stable for the last three years, it soared in the early 1990s, increasing more than 100 percent, according to a California Assembly Budget Committee report.
"In the information age, education is the essential passport to a better life," Davis said.
"This bill ensures that skyrocketing fees will never again be a barrier to college in California."
California State Students Association Chair Carlos Razo said that the proposal will offer a reasonable way to calculate fee increases.
"We want to make sure that if there is a fee increase that it is based on California per capita income increases which are about 2 percent to 5 percent."
Currently, the governor's compact requires the universities and state colleges to make a budget request for up to a 10 percent increase in student fees each year.
Recently, fees have not increased because the state has been able to provide revenue to replace that which would have been generated by a fee increase.