UCSD students sit-in to protest tuition hike
SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – There were sit-ins at all ten campuses of the California University system Tuesday.Students were protesting another hike in tuition that may be approved Wednesday.
If approved, tuition will have tripled since 2005, burying students in more debt.
The average borrower will graduate $26,600 in debt, and the taxpayers are the creditor.
At $1.2 trillion, student debt is second only to mortgages in consumer debt.
Education is near the top of priorities in California, but the money never matches the promises.
Students are supposed to pay their debt, but it is difficult in a country that is deep in debt that it is slowing the economic growth, and creating fewer good paying jobs for students who graduate.
“The state invests more money in prisons, the incarcerated, than in students, and that’s an injustice to the whole system,” said Iris Delgado.
The whole system is the governor and the board of regents. In 2005 the state paid 60% of a student’s tuition, families paid 40%.
“The easy way out would be, ya, let’s ask the students for it, but that’s not at all what the UC Regents job is, their job is to advocate for us students,” said Delgado.
Krystal Fabella is a third year student, and her debt is $25,000. She comes from a middle class family.
“I’m affording this off of my parents help, and a majority is off of loans which will increase after I have to pay after college. This is why this is really hitting me really hard,” said Fabella.
The regents, and university administrators, who recently got a pay hike say the tuition hike comes with an increase financial aid.
What people don’t know is that actually means that’s an increase in loans and people are already taking out so much loans, like myself, it hits the middle class probably the hardest,” said Fabella.
Iris Delgado understand the university wants to remain one of the top schools in the county.
“They shouldn’t hold us accountable, or they shouldn’t hold us as leverage to get what the state doesn’t give them,” said Delgado.
“It’s really starting to price out students out of the university and really changing the public message that the university stands for,” said alumni Tanner Smith.
Some on the university staff agree with that.
“Being able to have an affordable education is hard, so the idea of having tuition hikes is very real and it would be a very big burden for them and their family,” said Haydee Cervantes.
The tuition increase is 5%, per year, for five years. Ironically, that would equal the amount of cuts to the university system since the recession began in 2008.
