Protesters gathered for the second time this week outside of the Cal State University Office of the Chancellor in downtown Long Beach Wednesday morning to protest a possible CSU systemwide tuition hike.
If Board of Trustees votes to approve the rising tuition fee in an upcoming March session, the tuition for undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students would be increased by five percent for all CSUs.
With increased tuition revenue, CSU Board of Trustees have expressed interest in getting more students to graduate in a timely manner as a top priority.
About 50 students and faculty from Cal State Long Beach and other CSUs arrived at 5 a.m. to protest and catch the attention of Board of Trustee members and other officials.
Organization Leader for Student for Quality Education Norberto Lopez said he felt optimistic that his group’s message is getting through to the CSU Board of Trustees, based on interactions with board members.
Lateefah Simon, a Board of Trustee Member, said she sympathized with SQE and expressed solidarity for their advocation.
“[Simon] came out and said, ‘I’m in support of you. I support of what you’re doing, it’s important that you’re doing this.’ And two other Boards of Trustees [members] came out as well to hear what concerns the students have,” Lopez said. “We still have yet to hear from Chancellor [White], he still has yet to say anything to us.”
Protester set up signs shaped like headstones in the grass for each CSU campus, saying things such as “R.I.P to CSU Sacramento” and “Here Lies Humboldt State,” while other protesters chanted “students, not customers!”
According to the the tuition proposal report by CSU Chancellor White on Sept. 29, the revenue from the tuition raise will help facilitate the goal of getting 40 percent of students to graduate in four years by 2025.
Other priorities listed include investing in enrollment growth, academic facilities and campus infrastructure, employee compensation and maintaining mandatory costs that increase from inflation and CSU statutory mandates.
Despite the outlined priorities in the proposal report, Lopez emphasized that the lack of transparency in regard to where the extra revenue from tuition will go is troubling.
“How do we know that deficit is real? These are just numbers that they put out. It’s time to question these numbers and ask for the transparency we’ve been [requesting] for many years. And yet, they still have failed,” Lopez said. “Where’s that money going? There’s no clear answer to that question. You really have to dig deep. But not a lot of students have time to dig deep.”
Lopez argued that students already have enough costs to worry about and raising tuition will not get more students to graduate faster, but will instead burden students trying to balance work and classes and diminish the quality of education.
“One of the slogans we are using for SQE is ‘the more we pay, the longer we stay,’” Lopez said. “If they are really trying to push this four-year grad initiative, how are they going to be successful when students have to work more hours and [push] their graduation dates behind? Not enough classes are being offered.”
He proposed that CSUs should lower costs of winter and summer classes. Instead of putting the costs back on the students, the Board of Trustees should help find ways to fund winter and summer courses are often not covered by financial aid, he said.
Lopez said that in his opinion, without time to explore and learn, the quality of education will become worse.
“We are going to continue doing what we are doing. We are going to be back there in January, back there in March because it’s important we voice our concerns.”
The next Board of Trustees meetings are Jan. 31 – Feb.1.