I thought public school was supposed to be cheap? As a high school senior at a private school hoping to attend UC Berkeley next year, I was under the impression that public schools were affordable, not like those bourgeoisie-infested, impossibly expensive private schools like Stanford or Harvard, right? Well, thanks to a plan to raise tuition at UCs by upwards of 30% along with Stanford offering me free tuition because of my family’s financial status, it is actually cheaper for me to go to Stanford than it is for me to go to a public UC. With the rate hikes, UC tuition will go past $10,000 a year. Add this to the cost of room and board, and the cost of going to a UC comes out to about $24,000 a year. That doesn’t really seem like public education to me.
What are we going to get with all of this tuition money? I’m going to get an amazing education right? Well, I’m sure I will, but it doesn’t seem like I’m going to see much of that $10,000. In addition to tuition hikes, UCs are also mandating teacher furloughs in an effort to cut funds. Won’t this just cut students’ opportunities to learn and receive the opportunities they are paying $10,000 a year to receive? Not only is this unfair to the students, it is unfair to faculty and staff. In addition to the unpaid furloughs, faculty and staff will also face pay cuts of up to 10% as well as layoffs. How can the UC system claim to be top-notch if it is comprised of students who pay too much to be taught by underpaid professors who are required to not go to work?
But, there is an even more heinous crime underlying this affront to our education. The very man who proposed the tuition hikes, furloughs, lay-offs and pay-cuts, Mark Yudof, will earn $828,000 this year, including salary and benefits. I think I may have just spotted an area where cuts can be made that won’t affect my education in the slightest. I wholeheartedly agree with the 5000 Berkeley students who demonstrated against furloughs and tuition hikes on Thursday, and I believe the true solution to the UCs budget problems is to reduce inefficient and overpaid bureaucracy and chop from the top.
