Mitra Ebadolahi Ebadolahi is a fourth
year international development studies and history student who
encourages comments and criticism at [email protected].
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The UC Regents’ recent proposal to hike student fees has
been greeted with complacent silence here at UCLA. Between all our
classes, jobs and exams, it appears we Bruins have forgotten a
simple but critical truth: Education, at all levels, should be
free.
Meanwhile, concerned students at Queen’s University in
Ontario occupied their principal’s office to protest similar
proposals to charge tuition in Canadian schools. Their week-long
sit-in contrasts sharply with our acceptance of higher education at
an increasingly higher cost.
Over the past twenty years, public universities worldwide have
begun to charge students tuition in exchange for a college
education. This “fee-for-service” approach is part of a
process known as deregulation, through which price controls
limiting student costs have been gradually removed. Once tuition is
fully deregulated, university officials can charge whatever they
please for admission. This leaves students with two options: pay up
or get out.
Tuition deregulation and fee hikes now serve as miraculous
“cure-all” solutions to funding shortages in colleges
throughout the United States. This has created a true crisis in
higher education, a crisis which has been primarily shouldered by
lower class students, single parents and students of color. More
and more students are graduating with huge levels of debt due to
loans used to pay for books and registration. Even worse, many
students, daunted by financial constraints, are not completing
their degrees at all.
It is absurd that our society can afford to spend $400 billion
on defense yet fail to provide its citizens with the most
fundamental of human rights, free of charge.
Although Americans consider education an inalienable right,
nearly everyone admits education spending is inadequate in the
United States. In California, Gov. Gray Davis reneged on an
agreement to increase UC funding according to enrollment, blaming
the budget crunch on deficient state money. In Washington, the Bush
administration allotted a paltry $49 billion for primary, secondary
and post-secondary education, while spending twelve times as much
on the military.
The lack of sufficient state and federal resources places a
heavy burden on public universities to cut operating costs. Rather
than trimming administrative salaries or demanding more government
education spending, however, bureaucrats have learned to offset
budget deficits by increasing student fees and tuition.
The UC Regents are no exception. Two weeks ago, the Board of
Regents proposed a student fee increase to supplement state and
federal funds. The Regents partially justified their proposal by
reminding students that fees have been constant for the past eight
years. Although this is accurate, we must also remember the actual
cost of these fees: nearly $4,300 per student. That’s already
more than most people in Los Angeles can afford to pay.
Yet passing on the costs of education to students has become so
commonplace that Larry Hershman, UC vice president for the budget,
actually stated full support for “moderate and
predictable” yearly increases in student fees (“Regents
discuss raising student fees” Daily Bruin, News, Jan.
17).
Perhaps one reason for UCLA’s muted response to the
Regents’ plan is the fact that the hikes will not be
instituted until the year after next. But even if we will be long
gone, we should recognize these proposals as part of a larger trend
which will continue to undermine universal access to education. The
legacy we leave with our complacency will become our
children’s burden.
Furthermore, fee hikes at American universities set an example
for university administrators around the world. One of the most
troubling aspects of deregulation is its “domino
effect” quality: what happens at one school is soon
replicated in many other schools within a particular region.
Indeed, American universities have catalyzed an international
movement away from free institutions of higher education.
Instances of this phenomenon are innumerable. In announcing the
plans to deregulate tuition at Queen’s, for example,
Principal William Leggett claimed the university should serve as a
test case for deregulation throughout Ontario. In 1999, students
protesting a proposed fee increase at Mexico City’s enormous
autonomous university, UNAM, also decried education spending cuts
in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Venezuela (CSM Sept. 15,
1999).
Education is not a commodity, nor should it be a privilege
reserved for the wealthy few. Governments must guarantee students
equal access to education at all levels in order to fulfill their
end of the social contract between the citizen and the state. As
students here in the U.S., we must recognize America’s role
as a trend-setter in tuition deregulation, and fight alongside
students worldwide to make education a free, unalienable right.