Students at California State University campuses might wonder why it’s become increasingly expensive to attain their degrees even though their tuition costs — determined mainly by the university system’s board of trustees — have remained relatively stable. The state auditor has found the main culprit: rapidly escalating, mandatory student fees.
According to a report this month, the auditor noted that average fees have soared by 56 percent over eight years, from $1,047 to $1,633. Tuition has gone up only 5 percent over the same period. Financial-aid programs generally don’t take fees into account, which means students must pay for them out of pocket, or by going more deeply into debt.
Of most concern, individual CSU campuses sometimes use the fees to subsidize spending that should be covered by tuition. These fees are meant to pay for specific services such as parking and housing, but the campuses also use them to pay for “fundamental costs” such as software, lab equipment, instructional materials and employee compensation.
The auditor zeroed in on four campuses — Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Chico State, San Diego State and San Jose State — but a reliance on mandatory fees is rampant across all 23 campuses. “Because campuses establish and increase mandatory fees with little oversight, these fees are not subject to the same transparency and do not receive the same oversight as tuition or state funding,” per the report.
CSU’s mission has long focused on providing a quality education at an affordable price. The university system generally has done a fine job of providing the former, but is straying from the latter. Like all publicly supported institutions, CSU has failed to control its administrative costs, but has been remarkably creative at finding new revenue sources.
There’s little question why the campuses have relied on these fees. The problem started during the last budget crisis, when lawmakers cut support by $1 billion. But CSU is in a much better spot than it had been nine years ago. “CSU currently receives more combined funding from state general fund support and tuition per student than it did before the crisis,” the report explains, but the schools “have not decreased their mandatory fees in response.”
And where is the needed transparency? The state auditor found “instances of campuses establishing or increasing mandatory fees without adequately justifying the need or sufficiently consulting with students” and examples of campuses that “circumvent certain requirements” that the Legislature had established for boosting these student fees.The auditor’s recommendations are reasonable. The report calls for the Legislature to provide more oversight and place limits on the use of these fees for programs that should be funded by tuition. It also calls for the Chancellor’s Office to develop stricter fee guidelines. CSU said it would implement the suggestions, but warned against additional legislative meddling.
We don’t want the Legislature to impede on CSU’s independence, but this is a public university system that receives the bulk of its funding from taxpayers. It needs to do a better job following state rules and in getting its spending priorities in line. The state is facing a new budget crisis, so this is the right time for the Legislature to exert its proper oversight role — before CSU follows the fee-raising approach it took during the last financial mess.
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May 27, 2020 at 09:03AM
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CSU fees are out of control and need to be reined in - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
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