While the Cal State University can be considered one of the most affordable systems in the nation, a report by the College Affordability and Transparency Center has deemed the 23-campus system as having one of the highest tuition increase rates.
The list was released on June 12 and accounts for every university that offers financial aid. Every school offering financial aid is required to give data to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), according to the 2008 revision of the Higher Education Opportunity Act.
Cal State Long Beach tuition and fees increased by 42 percent from 2008-09 to 2010-11, jumping from $3,392 to $4,810. The average national tuition increase stands at 15 percent.
The statistics lack the context and explanation of budget increases since 2007, according to Cal State University director of media relations Mike Uhlenkamp,
“There is always value to data, but the data has to have a context,” Uhlenkamp said. “From the last five years, since 2007, 1 billion dollars has been cut from the budget.”
Even with the higher percentage of tuition increase, CSULB is still relatively low in price when compared to other institutions according to Uhlenkamp.
“Costs have been more affordable than any other university in the whole nation,” Uhlenkamp said.
School systems outside of California have not been through the same amount of budget cuts that the state has seen recently, Uhlenkamp said. From 2011 to 2012 the state cut $750 million from CSULB’s budget.
Sarah Flores, an alumna in theater arts, agreed saying the report can be misleading when students look at it.
“We went from cheapest to still pretty cheap,” she said. “I think the statistics are objective, but people use them subjectively.”
Studio arts alumna, Sarah Kim, also agrees that the chart lacks context.
“It gives a reason to complain,” she said. “It gives a bad influence based on just seeing [statistics] from the website.”
The percentage of tuition increase for CSULB is higher than other institutions across the nation because the CSU only increases tuition when necessary, Fallis said.
“For the last 50 years, the CSU and UC system have gone out of their way … to keep tuition low,” he said.
The CSU is facing another potential $250 million trigger cut if voters don’t approve Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax initiative in November.