EDITORIAL BOARD Editor in
Chief  Timothy Kudo
Managing Editor
 Michael Falcone
Viewpoint Editor
 Cuauhtemoc Ortega
Staff Representatives
 Maegan Carberry
 Edward Chiao
 Kelly Rayburn
Editorial Board Assistants
 Maegan Carberry
 Edward Chiao
  Unsigned editorials represent a majority opinion of
the Daily Bruin Editorial Board. All other columns, letters and
artwork represent the opinions of their authors. Â Â All
submitted material must bear the author’s name, address, telephone
number, registration number, or affiliation with UCLA. Names will
not be withheld except in extreme cases. Â Â The Bruin
complies with the Communication Board’s policy prohibiting the
publication of articles that perpetuate derogatory cultural or
ethnic stereotypes. Â Â When multiple authors submit
material, some names may be kept on file rather than published with
the material. The Bruin reserves the right to edit submitted
material and to determine its placement in the paper. All
submissions become the property of The Bruin. The Communications
Board has a media grievance procedure for resolving complaints
against any of its publications. For a copy of the complete
procedure, contact the Publications office at 118 Kerckhoff Hall.
Daily Bruin 118 Kerckhoff Hall 308 Westwood Plaza Los Angeles, CA
90024 (310) 825-9898
To raise student fees, student committees must be consulted, the
UC Board of Regents must receive a formal proposal, and finally,
the governor and state legislature must give approval. To raise
fees for on-campus housing, UCLA Housing director Michael Foraker
simply decides behind closed doors and tells students later.
While student fees have remained steady or declined over the
past several years through state buyouts, housing fees have
increased every year since 1994 and have beaten inflation. Though
nearly everyone in the state ““ from legislators, to the
governor, to UC administrators and students ““ agrees on the
importance of low student fees at the UC, nobody seems to think the
roughly $700 increase students will pay next year for on-campus
housing will affect their ability to attend UCLA.
For far too long, housing has been viewed as separate from the
rest of the university. It’s not funded by the state, and
because UCLA runs it as a business, students bear any increased
costs. On top of this, student representation in housing takes the
form of the On-Campus Housing Council, a group which consistently
fails to accomplish important goals in on-campus housing and
instead works to get ATMs installed on the hill.
The increased on-campus housing cost not only makes UCLA less
affordable to lower and middle-income students, but coupled with
overcrowding and only two years of guaranteed housing for students,
will help make UCLA a commuter campus. This campus used to be a
vital center of life for undergraduate students, but with more and
more students choosing to commute to campus and live outside of
Westwood, the community UCLA students once developed is quickly
disappearing.
It’s time for all this to change.
If students and administrators are serious about access to
education and the quality of life at UCLA, they cannot treat
housing as an island unto itself. It’s time for the state to
begin subsidizing the cost of housing and for UCLA administrators
and students to act as if housing is the integral part of campus
that it is. Though administrators may view the housing fee increase
as separate from student fees, this is still a $700 increase passed
on to students, plain and simple, and it cannot be tolerated.
Students should unconditionally fight this and any other increase
in student fees whether they go to education or housing. They must
not let bureaucrats and politicians claim that this university is
affordable when for many students forced to work rather than go to
college, it isn’t.
Earlier this year, OCHC chair Adam Harmetz wrote to The Bruin
that “The student power to influence housing policy is in the
right place: the residents themselves.” It seems in this
case, OCHC has failed, not in its intentions but in its capacity to
affect policy on the hill in the face of disrespectful
administrators and its perception that this problem is an on-campus
housing problem. The significant problems in on-campus housing will
only be addressed at the state level, and OCHC should realize this.
Likewise, the housing council’s failure to recognize that
what happens in housing profoundly affects the rest of campus is as
shortsighted a view as that of administrators who share their
views. If administrators won’t listen, it’s time for
students across campus to let them know what we need. This is our
house, and it’s time they realize it.