Over the years, California State University students have noticed that the money they have been paying for school has increased even while tuition has not.
Until this year, tuition hadn't increased since 2011, even though expenses did. To make up for shortfalls in funding, CSU schools used different ways to create revenue. Several campuses did this by independently raising student fees.
Increasing student fees
Fees, which are added to basic tuition for things such as health services, student learning fees and student centers, have increased as much as $810 per student over the last eight years.
“Tuition was frozen because (Gov.) Jerry Brown pledged some annual increases to the CSU instead of raising tuition, but that still fell short,” said Jennifer Mays, Chico State’s interim associate vice provost for budget and academic resources.
Student fees can increase for a number of reasons. Some fees increase to keep up with inflation.
At Humboldt State University, for example, the materials services fee and health services fee have an annual inflation rate, according to Grant Scott-Goforth, university communications specialist. The increase has ranged from .09 percent to 2 percent and is based on a higher education index.
How fees change
Changes to student fees occur because organizations, such as the student health center, see a need to increase or decrease funding.
After an analysis is done for the organization to determine whether funding should be increased or decreased, faculty and students vote to approve the increase or decrease in fees.
“If we see a need, we will confirm those hunches with data,” Mays said. “With many of our self-support units, like the student health center, we’ll do an in-depth analysis of what the need really is. We don’t want to generate too much additional revenue.”
At Chico State, the Campus Fee Advisory Committee comprised of students, faculty, staff and administrative representatives also help determine the student fees.
The chart below shows the student fees for six universities in the CSU system since 2010.
Fees different from campus to campus
As shown in the chart above, each campus charges different student fees.
Some campuses have experienced a jump in student fees. CSU-Long Beach, for example, this year implemented a $188 per student Student Success or Learning fee. Its student center fee increased by $236.
CSU-Monterey Bay experienced an increase in student fees when the Student Center fee rose from $44 to $200 in 2015 and to $600 in 2017. There was also an increase in the Instuctionally Related Activities fee. In 2016, the fee was $60 and in 2017 it rose to $254. This led to the $394 increase in student fees for the 2017-2018 school year.
“Each campus may have different organizations or service request fees in different amounts, depending on the needs of the students,” Scott-Goforth said.
The Student Learning Fee was added to student fee statements to pay for basic materials for academic courses. Not every CSU has a Student Learning Fee; some have something similar called a Student Success Fee.
“During the recession, it was the only way to generate enough revenue to pay our faculty,” Mays said.
The contrast among campuses can be seen in the difference in revenue for Chico State and Humboldt State. The two schools charge the same health facilities fee of $6 but have a very different breakdown of other fees.
Chico State charges about $600 more for the student services center fee than Humboldt State, which charges about $400 more for its Instructionally Related Activities fee.
Increasing tuition
The Board of Trustees for the California State University system voted to raise tuition to $5,742 for the 2017-2018 school year for all schools in the system.
“What happened is that the state did not fully fund the CSU system budget request,” said Elizabeth Chapin, manager of the CSU public affairs office in Long Beach. “The tuition was contingent on the state approving the full budget request.”
The CSU hasn’t been fully funded in two and a half decades, according to Chapin. State funding per student continued to decline as enrollment increased. The CSU system has been doing more with less.
According to a budget document provided by Chapin, the CSU trustees requested an additional $324.9 million in state funding for 2017-2018 school year, but Gov. Brown’s proposed budget allocated less than half of the request.
As shown in the chart below, the Board of Trustees decided to raise tuition by $270 per student when the request for additional state funds was not approved.
Tuition was $4,440 in 2010-2011 and was raised to $5,472 for the 2011-2012 school year. Tuition had not changed until this year.
-By Ruby Larson
