Not too surprisingly, UC students have been protesting the 32% tuition hike UC Regents approved last week with huge demonstrations involving drums and chants about injustice. It's a tough situation undoubtedly: students who are barely scraping together the money for tuition in addition to all of the other college expenses could be overburdened by the increase, while the state of California is floudering financially and slashing spending anywhere possible, including of course, higher education.
A study my sister worked on is cited this article from UC Davis' The Aggie saying that, "Nearly 90 percent of Californians are "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" about student fee hikes." Yet, 56% said they would not be willing to pay higher taxes to deal with the state budget problems. So who do they want to pay for it?
Personally, I agree with this view of the situation outlined by Ian Ayres for the Freakonomics Blog - the people who should pay for it are the ones who have the money. If you can afford the higher tuition, you'll pay it and if you can't then you'll get help. The UCs are high caliber schools that still are not that expensive, relative to private institutions. The wealthier students will pay the tuition, the poorer students will get financial aid and the ones in the middle? That's where I think the burden will be placed and where some kind of assistance is needed... manna from heaven sounds like a good plan.
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