Thirty-two percent.
Even in this deficit-riddled state, the sheer size of the University of California’s tuition increase last week was enough to spark a collective wave of anger and disbelief among many students, escalating protests that have been simmering throughout the system for months.
Protesters occupied buildings on four campuses to protest the higher tuition, drawing large crowds and causing hundreds of classes to be canceled. At Berkeley, a group of 40 students and their supporters barricaded themselves inside a major academic building for 11 hours, and top university officials were sent into the building as crack negotiators to end the standoff.
By creating dramatic scenes of student anger and confrontation with police, the protesters succeeded brilliantly at drawing public attention to their cause. Images of protests were shown prominently on CNN and elsewhere, recalling for many the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s.
Protesters and their supporters proved adept at getting their story out. The group occupying the Berkeley building managed to deliver statements to the news media and recruit a large crowd of supporters—through cellphone calls, bullhorns, painted signs, and Twitter—even as police officers were beating down their doors to arrest them.
“The SWAT team is coming in. They are hammering the hinges off as I type,” read one missive from an occupier’s Twitter account.
It has been a demoralizing year at one of the nation’s premier university systems, as the worst budget crisis in its recent history has led leaders to adopt severe cost-cutting measures in rapid succession. Two actions in particular—the tuition increase and employee furloughs—have touched off palpable anger among students and faculty and staff members, many of whom blame university leaders for failing to put students’ and employees’ interests first.
But as administrators and students alike confronted the aftermath of protests—court cases, sporadic damage to occupied buildings, investigations of possible police brutality—the university remains where it was: facing limited options to close a huge budget gap, with more cuts in state support on the horizon.
Mark G. Yudof, the university’s president, told reporters the university had “no choice” but to continue with the 32-percent increase in tuition. Those who occupied campus buildings were forced out by the police without obtaining a single concession from university officials.
On the same day that the system’s Board of Regents moved the tuition increase forward, the Legislature’s chief budget analyst estimated that California would face a new $21-billion budget deficit, making additional cuts to the university’s funds likely without new taxes.
‘Decades of Mistrust’
As protesters gathered this week to discuss how best to sustain their momentum, views differed on whether to focus their efforts on the university’s handling of its budget or to take the fight to state lawmakers in Sacramento.
“The steps of Sacramento are waiting,” said Victor Sanchez, president of the University of California Students Association, who joined protests in Los Angeles. “That, for me, is the foreseeable next step.”
Mr. Sanchez said the tuition increase had been a disastrous move that hurt Mr. Yudof’s credibility. Still, he held out hope that students and administrators could join together to present a unified message to state lawmakers.
“The day that Mark Yudof marches in Sacramento with students will be the first step in that direction,” Mr. Sanchez said. “What’s really underlying this is a whole history of decades of mistrust between students and the administration.”
Others believe continued protests should be aimed at the university leadership itself, focusing on what they see as dishonesty from Mr. Yudof about the depth of the university’s budget problems. The university, they say, could alleviate the tuition increase by redistributing existing resources or tapping hidden reserves.
University leaders have denounced those views in unusually strong terms in recent weeks, calling them “disinformation” and “nonsense.” They have also emphasized that a third of the new tuition revenue will be returned to financial-aid programs, which they say will shield low-income students from the effects of the tuition increase.
Annie McClanahan, a protest organizer and a graduate student at Berkeley, said she had trouble believing Mr. Yudof’s statements about financial aid, echoing the doubts of many protesters. “I just simply don’t believe that,” she said. “There’s no sense that those programs are such a solid thing.”
While the protests have died down somewhat, Ms. McClanahan said highly visible actions were needed to keep up the pressure on university administrators. She said some students had discussed a new tactic: a fee boycott in which students would withhold paying tuition to protest the increase. Such a move could set up the next in a long line of standoffs between the two sides.
