LOS ANGELES, July 19 (Xinhua) -- The University of California Board of Regents on Thursday approved the university's revised 2018-19 budget plan with the first decrease in tuition, 60 U.S. dollars, in about two decades.
"The tuition reduction, from its current 11,502 U.S. dollars annually to 11,442 U.S. dollars annually, results from the end of a temporary surcharge instituted in fall 2007 to recoup damages from two earlier class-action lawsuits," UC said in a press release. "By fall 2018, nearly all of those costs will be fully recovered."
Regents approved an 8.7-billion U.S. dollars spending plan for 2018-19 that includes the tuition decrease, in a two-day meeting in San Francisco.
Academic charges, including tuition and student services fees, would total 12,570 U.S. dollars annually. The student services fee will remain at 1,128 U.S. dollars a year. The proposed budget includes money to add 2,000 California undergraduates and 500 graduate students this fall.
The university last lowered tuition by 5 percent in the 1999-2000 academic year. Since then, system-wide fees have more than tripled, from 3,429 U.S. dollars.
The Legislature adopted a final 2018-19 State Budget on June 14 and the California's Governor Jerry Brown signed the budget package into law on June 27. The State General Fund budget totals 138.6 billion U.S. dollars reflects a spending increase of 9 percent over 2017-18.
According to a background document, ongoing General Fund support for operating expenses will increase by 98.1 million U.S. dollars, a 2.9 percent increase over the University's 2017-18 permanent base budget. In addition, the budget provides the University with temporary, one-time General Fund appropriations totaling 248.8 million U.S. dollars. This new funding has been incorporated into a revised 2018-19 budget plan for the University, which the Board is asked to approve.
Under the plan, the University would have sufficient funds to cover projected increases in mandatory costs in 2018-19 without the immediate need for a tuition increase and would be able to make critical one-time investments in student success, restoring academic quality, and other areas.
However, because over two-thirds of new State support for the University is provided in the form of temporary, one-time funding, additional ongoing resources will be needed to maintain proposed levels of expenditures beyond 2018-19.
Regents also decided to again take on the issue of how many nonresident students should be enrolled as they wrapped up the two-day meeting in San Francisco.
UC regents already have phased out financial aid for nonresidents, capped their enrollment and this year raised their tuition.
