California Budget Cuts

Protesters at the University of California, Berkeley

Protests at University of California (UC) campuses continued for a third day on Friday, as students mobilized against a massive hike in fees at the state’s institutions of public higher education.

Yesterday, the UC Board of Regents approved a 32 percent increase in fees for undergraduates attending a UC school. In total, the fee hike, which will be implemented in two stages over the course of 2010, will add about $2,500 a year to students’ bills. This will bring the price tag for enrolling in the UC system to more than $10,000 a year. This sum is in addition to the thousands of dollars that undergraduates and their families must pay in order to cover the costs for room, board, books and incidental expenses.