While many aspects of the proposed budget cuts to the UC system are no doubt galling, this writer has argued in the past that fee increases are necessary to maintain the quality of the UC system, so long as disadvantaged students are given the assistance they need to attend college. However, one aspect of the proposed second round of tuition hikes is particularly troubling: the Schwarzenegger administration’s proposal that students who take more than 110 percent of the credits necessary for graduation begin to pay tuition at out-of-state rates. Slipped into the maelstrom, most protesters have hardly noticed the clause, but the governor’s office believes it can save $9 million per year by essentially penalizing students for their intellectual curiosity. The figure seems grossly misleading and the tactic itself could compromise educational quality for the best and brightest in the UC system who also happen to be the most disadvantaged.
It appears that the only possible origin of the $9 million figure is from computing the excess number of units students are graduating with, and multiplying by the penalty. But this figure in no way represents the actual cost of teaching students for more than 110 percent of their units. Often times, these students are double majors, in which case due to the limited number of courses they can take in a quarter, any spaces they fill in classes above 16 units would most likely be empty anyway. Perhaps the new structure targets the other breed of students who exceed 110 percent of required units: wayward academic wanderers, who jump from major to major over the course of seven or eight years. But why penalize students for academic curiosity? The lower-division classes that those students take are taught in large lecture halls where the additional cost of a few extra students is essentially zero. Perhaps both the double majors and the wandering students add a bit on the load in the way of TAs and grading, but iIt is not as if the classes — and the units that they take — would not exist were it not for the extra units.
In the case of the double majors and students with minors in particular, the policy seems to penalize academic investigation, and even worse, it has the potential to create a two-tier system within UC among the brightest who undertake heavier workloads. Financial aid offices most likely will neglect the somewhat marginal cases of double majors in need of support, or at best, use those much-needed funds to take on additional students at UC. However, students who are better off can afford in-depth education in more than one field. Due to the increasing importance of non-liberal arts degrees with career-specific training, such as engineering or economics, a “one-major-fits-all” approach is unjustified. Students very well could use complementary education from multiple fields that they can best pick up in college. A biologist very well could use programming skills in her future work, and certainly aspiring engineers should be encouraged to take classes involving plenty of reading and writing, lest they graduate with the brains to create useful machines without the ability to communicate what they actually do.
In short, the proposed policy penalizes academic investigation, and further hurts motivated disadvantaged students, when all students should be exploring classes outside of their majors, either to further prepare themselves for the work force or to broaden their understanding of the world. It penalizes despite the fact that preventing motivated students from filling up empty spaces will likely save the state very little money.
If the rest of the tuition hike proposals are passed, this relatively minor issue probably will fall in with the rest of them. Perhaps UC campuses can help skirt this requirement by establishing “expected graduation unit counts,” which are higher for double and triple majors, and students with minors. Leave it to the administrators to be the enlightened ones. This writer tries, in any case, to be optimistic.
With the many UCSD students who live off-campus in 12-month contracts, the summer no doubt represents an albatross where students must either sublet their rooms, at substantial cost, or make some use of their time in San Diego. As a veteran of San Diego summer living, this writer feels that he is qualified to make at least a few suggestions:
1. If at all possible, take summer classes. While sitting for 3 hours straight in a class twice a week might not seem appealing, the classes are far easier than classes during the normal academic year, and somehow, this writer manages to learn more during them, although that might just be an illusion of the condensed time frame. In any case, he wishes that all quarters were only 5 weeks long.
2. Get a research job on campus if at all possible. The times will be far more flexible to taking classes on campus, and there is plenty of money around for undergraduates seeking to do research (notably the chancellor’s undergraduate research scholarship). It’s far more appealing on a resume than working retail, and it pays about the same.
3. Try avoiding both the beach and marijuana. Salty air or a case of the munchies can only increase one’s food budget, and between rent, classes and a job in either retail or a lab, perhaps it’s best to stay on a diet.
