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It may be Valentine’s Day, but UC President Richard
Atkinson is showing no love to students. While trying to work
through this year’s strained budget, Atkinson has placed
student fees on the bottom of his priority list by choosing not to
fight to prevent an increase.
But raising student fees as a solution to the poor policy
actions and irresponsible budgetary decisions made by Gov. Gray
Davis and the state is a lame effort to cover up mismanagement. The
state had opportunities to control for the budget deficit, but
Davis decided to cut taxes by $4.3 billion instead of reserving
that money to keep up his end of the UC-state Partnership Agreement
that guarantees certain funding to the university. In the face of
the governor’s reckless actions, and with the knowledge that
the university may face up to a 15 percent budget cut, the regents
voted for a 25 percent pay increase for top university
administrators.
Students are not administrators; they can’t afford to pay
more fees. In addition to the academic pressures of school, the
cost of living in California skyrockets daily, as do the interest
rates on student loans. Higher fees might mean another job for many
students, and that means less time for studying, participating in
groups, volunteering and simply living ““ which undermines the
whole purpose of a university education in the first place.
If the governor is truly opposed to student fee increases, as he
claims, he will come out hard against Atkinson’s decision, as
will Student Regent Tracy Davis and the UC Students Association.
They must let President Atkinson know that this is a state
institution, and we students already paid our “fees”
when we paid taxes.