With state legislators offering the Cal State University an additional $125 million in state funding, the CSU now faces a heavy question: to rescind the 9 percent tuition increase or not to rescind.
Last week, Gov. Jerry Brown signed an education trailer bill that promised an extra $125 million in state funding to each of the California public university systems, the University of California and CSU, for 2013-14, should the systems agree to freeze tuition increases for upcoming academic year.
The UC was expected to discuss a possible 6 percent tuition increase on the July 17 Board of Regents meeting.
UC administrators quickly agreed to the buyout deal Thursday, just a day after Brown signed the bill into the state budget. The CSU, however, is being more hesitant.
“It essentially comes down to the fact that there are no good solutions,” CSU Spokesman Erik Fallis said.
The CSU voted to increase tuition by 9 percent in the November Board of Trustees meeting and has already started collecting that money from student who are registering for the fall. Fallis said agreeing to the deal and rescinding tuition increases would mean refunding those students.
Should the CSU agree to rescind the tuition increase, the 23-campus system would lose $132 million from its budget for 2012-13.
The deal is also contingent with voters’ decision to pass Brown’s tax measure this November, meaning that without the measure the CSU would lose the state support in 2013-14 and face a $250 million trigger cut.
The total loss in state support would result in a potential $382 million hole in the system’s budget if the CSU had taken the deal.
“Then all of those dire situations that we were talking about become more dire,” Fallis said. “Threats to programs, to services, to operations will become that much more severe.”
Also, should the tax initiative not pass, the CSU cannot recover simply by raising tuition again.
“We can’t change the ship around at no notice,” Fallis said. “We don’t work that way. Once we set the class schedules … it becomes very hard to change again.”
However, even if Brown’s tax initiative passes this November, the CSU would not receive additional state funding until 2013-14, a year after it is needed.
Fallis said the governor’s administration has indicated willingness to try working with the CSU to bridge this time gap and find resources to fund the 2012-13 year.
With the possibility of these cuts attached to the deal, senior English major at Cal State Long Beach Jakki McCann said the CSU should not agree to freeze tuition at the moment.
“The risk would be instead of … rates being gradual, they would jump,” McCann said. “It would be a lot worse to shock students with that big of a raise all of a sudden.”
In response to the deal, David Bradfield, Associate Vice President of the California Faculty Association’s Board of Directors, said the CSU should take every opportunity to reduce student fees.
“We are about quality access and affordability,” Bradfield said. “We’ve had a long standing position to roll back student fees.”
CFA called on the CSU in a press release to endorse Brown’s tax initiative “so that California can once again properly fund its priorities” and so the CSU may avoid millions of dollars in cuts.
Bradfield said the UC has endorsed the tax initiative and he can’t imagine why the CSU hasn’t.
The decision of whether or not to take the deal ultimately lies with the CSU Board of Trustees, Fallis said. According to the CSU website, the Board will make its decision at its September meeting.
Fallis also said that with past budget cuts, the system has already taken the possible steps to recover financially and that none of those steps will be an option to the CSU if Brown’s tax measure fails.
Even if the system tried to maximize the dollars of its budget, Fallis said the cuts are “going to have an impact.”
He said that such a large hole in the system’s budget could affect everyone in the CSU, including even the accountants who handle professors’ salaries.
“We’re screwed as students if this tax measure doesn’t pass,” McCann said.