United States largest public university system to hike tuition six per cent annually for next five years
California State University, the nation's largest public university system, voted Wednesday to raise student tuition by 6% each year for five consecutive years to try to narrow a $1.5 billion deficit, a decision that some students called disheartening.
The university's governing board voted 15-5 to approve the increases that will start across the 23-campus system in the fall of 2024. Annual tuition for full-time California undergraduate students will increase by $342 next year to $6,084. By the 2028-2029 school year, those students will be paying $7,682.
The tuition hikes are needed to provide support to students, both through financial aid and programs to help them succeed academically, university officials say. The extra revenue is also needed to give more resources to faculty and staff and maintain school facilities, according to a report about the system's finances released in May.
The report found the system with 460,000 students, many of them minorities and first-generation college students, has enough revenue to cover about 86% of what it actually costs to meet student, staff, and institution needs, leaving it with a $1.5 billion gap.
«We are at a crossroads and if we don't do it now… it's going to get more and more difficult,» said Julia Lopez, a CSU trustee and the co-chairperson of the working group that wrote this report.
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Angelie Taylor, a junior at Cal State Channel Islands in Camarillo, California, said an increase in tuition will likely derail her because she is already working three part-time jobs to pay for tuition and cover housing and other expenses.
Taylor, who is a student organizer at Students for Quality Education, a progressive
