A trailer bill designed to halt tuition increases and provide additional state funding for California universities was approved Wednesday by Gov. Jerry Brown in his finalizing of the primary state budget bill.
AB 1502 guarantees $125 million in state funding each to the Cal State University and University of California systems in 2013-14 so long as the systems refrain from increasing student tuition in 2012-13.
“Our position is that fees are already too high,” John Vigna, spokesman for Assembly Speaker John Perez (D-Los Angeles), said. “We don’t want them to go any higher.”
The bill will only take effect if Brown’s tax initiative passes this November, an action that would also save the CSU from facing a $250 million trigger cut in the fall.
Before the vote on the trailer bill, the CSU had approved a 9 percent tuition increase in November for this year while the UC had warned of a 6 percent increase.
Vigna said that in order to receive the additional state funding, the CSU system would have to rescind the tuition increases planned for this year, even though students are already paying fees for 2012-13.
“The speaker has been very concerned with the cost of higher education and its accessibility and affordability for the average Californian,” Vigna said. “This budget action is keeping with that.”
CSU Spokesman Erik Fallis said that the CSU Board of Trustees is open to the legislature’s actions and “welcomes anything that would make things easier for our students.”
However, Fallis said if the CSU halted the tuition increase, it would lose revenue it had already budgeted for.
“It’s a little complicated in that what they’re talking about is $125 million [in additional state funding] in 2013 for what would essentially be creating a $132 million hole in 2012-13,” Fallis said.
The timing of the funding also poses an issue for the CSU because the system wouldn’t have access to the needed funding until the following academic year.
“How do we manage without funding that would need to be immediate?” Fallis said.
Tuition increases would allow the CSU to provide more classes, seats for students and contracts for part time faculty, among other things, according to Fallis. He said the CSU would need to bridge the budget gap somehow in the coming year.
“If we don’t have this revenue from tuition, all we have is a promise that will be made up at some point,” Fallis said. “We’re trying to work with the governor’s office and Sacramento to find resources to fund the current year.”
However, even with the bill in place, the CSU could still collect the nine percent tuition increase in the coming year, forsaking the extra $125 million for 2013-14.
Fallis said the decision on whether or not to rescind the increase is ultimately up to the Board of Trustees.
The CSU has faced at least $1 billion in budget cuts since 2007-08 and has compensated for these in various ways, including cuts to faculty positions and reductions in enrollment.
The board has already planned for very limited enrollment in spring 2013, and Fallis said that without Brown’s tax initiative this fall, the CSU has looked at curtailing enrollment even further for 2013-14.
“The big risk for us is that if this tax measure doesn’t pass, we get the $250 million trigger and lose the $125 million in state funding, and all of that comes on top of the damage that has already been done,” Fallis said.