CSUN University News Clippings

Editorial: UC should approve tuition waiver

(January 29, 2009)

Five years ago, Harvard University stunned the higher education world with an announcement that tuition, room and board would be free for families with incomes less than $40,000. This was changed to $60,000 in 2006.

Now California schools are following suit.

Stanford University made its announcement last year: Students from families earning less than $60,000 a year would pay no tuition or room and board; students from families earning less than $100,000 a year would pay no tuition.

University of California President Mark Yudof is proposing that students from families earning less than $60,000 a year pay no UC systemwide fees, which total more than $7,000 a year. The Board of Regents is expected to vote next week.

While Yudof’s proposal is not as sweeping as the Harvard and Stanford offers, it is significant. Half of California families earn less than $60,000 a year. In the UC’s current undergraduate student body, 28 percent fit under that threshold.

That doesn’t end the story, of course. The average cost of a UC education for a student living on campus is $25,300 a year. A student from a family earning $60,000 could expect to pay the balance with $3,800 in grants, $5,000 in federal loans, $2,400 from a part-time work-study job, $2,000 in summer job savings and the rest from parents’ savings.

Yudof’s proposal comes as family college savings have suffered with the stock market meltdown and the state budget crisis has forced higher education cuts. It comes as the UC expects to increase student fees. Under Yudof’s proposal, about a third of the increase in fees would be set aside to pay for the new program.

Yudof hopes this offer counters the perception that the UC is “financially inaccessible to students of modest means.” Regents should approve this plan.

Publication: Modesto Bee