UC System Decreases Tuition For First Time Since 1999

click to expand

SAN FRANCISCO (CBSLA/AP) – The University of California has reversed course, decreasing tuition for the first time in nearly 20 years, this after it had previously planned to hike tuition.

The UC Board of Regents announced Thursday that tuition would drop by $60 for in-state students for the 2018-19 year, bringing the total resident tuition and fees to $12,570. The board is holding two days of meeting at the UC San Francisco Mission Bay.

The decrease is due to the end of a temporary surcharge which had been in effect since 2007 to recoup legal costs from losses in two class-action lawsuits which cost UC nearly $100 million.

The UC had planned earlier this year to raise tuition for all students by $342. UC officials scrapped that proposal in April.

In March, however, the board voted to raise nonresident tuition next year by 3.5 percent, to $28,992.

The state budget that took effect July 1 boosted funding for the state's public universities in an effort to stave off tuition increases.

The UC system last lowered tuition for the 1999-2000 academic year. Regents approved a 5 percent tuition decrease for that year.

In April, the California State University system chose not to raise tuition at its 23 campuses for the 2018-19 year. In 2017, amid large protests, the CSU Board of Trustees approved a 5 percent increase in tuition, bringing annual tuition for 2017-18 for a resident student to $5,742.