CSUN University News Clippings

CSU students sue over 2nd fee hike

(August 24, 2009)

By Laurel Rosenhall
Published: 8/22/2009

California State University students have sued the system’s board of trustees for raising fees a second time this year, alleging that the fee hikes amount to a breach of contract.

Students had already been billed for the fall semester - and many had paid the fees - when trustees voted last month to raise the price an additional 20 percent, the suit says, adding $672to the annual cost for undergraduates.

“These fees were not included in the price the University previously communicated to these students in its bills fortheFall2009term,and students were not warned in those bills that the price stated was not the final price for that term,” says the complaint filed in San Francisco Superior Court.

The suit names Samantha Adame, an undergraduate at San Francisco State, and Travis Donselman, an MBA student at Cal State San Bernardino, as plaintiffs but seeks to represent all 450,000 CSU students. In a hearing on Aug. 31, attorneys for the students will ask the court to stop the university from charging the additional fee.

“We want to try to stop students from having to scramble to come up with this extra money,” said Danielle Leonard, a lawyer with the Altshuler Berzon firm in San Francisco. “It’s pretty difficult because it’s a short amount of time they’re being given.”

A CSU spokeswoman said the state’s budget crisis has forced the university to raise fees, furlough employees and reduce enrollment.

“This is a crisis that brought us an unprecedented budget cut of $560 million. That is a very large amount, about 20 percent of the CSU operations budget,” said Clara Potes-Fellow.

“In order to manage the cut, the CSU had to take these three unprecedented steps.”

Leonard, who is representing the students, said a similar situation happened at the University of California in 2003.

“They had a budget shortfall and on the eve of classes they passed fee increase after already charging students a certain price,” she said.

Leonard represented UC students in that case, and they won. The Court of Appeal found that the university establishes its price when it bills students for the semester, Leonard said, and that it can’t charge extra fees after billing.

“It’s exactly the same situation,” she said. “And we’re confident the court will eventually order a refund.”

Publication: Sacramento Bee