Many students accepted to four-year universities chose to come to SRJC  to save money. High “fees” and a bad economy make it difficult for students to afford four years at a university, even a CSU. Complaints about tuition costs have become standard fare for college students all over California.

UC President Mark G. Yudof released an open letter to California Nov. 11 detailing his plan and justification for an 8 percent fee increase that he proposed to the UC Board of Regents. If the fee increase is approved, students’ tuition will go from $10,302 to $11,124 a year, around twice as much as six years ago.

“A public university should not be judged solely by its tuition level, but also by whom it teaches and serves,” Yudof said. Currently all students with family incomes of $70,000 or less receive financial aid and their tuition is covered by Cal Grants. The proposal would raise the income limit for financial aid to $80,000. Yudof is also proposing to expand the middle-income grant program to cover the fee increase for students with family household incomes of less than $120,000.

Even so, about half the undergraduate students in the UC system would pay the higher fees. “I think it’s a bit ridiculous to expect that many students to keep paying that much more for the same exact education, while also having to attend classes with more and more people in them,” said Buckley Collins, former SRJC student who now attends UC Davis.

To view Yudof’s full letter, go to website www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/24446.