California student strike
November 18, 2009Jon Brooks Comments OffCalifornia is suffering a severe budget crisis, and the state university system is taking its lumps. The University of California Regents are meeting over the next three days to vote on student fee hikes to cover budget shortfalls.
From today’s San Francisco Chronicle:
Meeting in Los Angeles, the regents are expected to approve a 32 percent student fee increase, the eighth hike since 2002, pushing annual tuition above the $10,000 mark for the first time. Under UC President Mark Yudof’s proposal, students would begin paying an incremental 15 percent increase as soon as next semester. The regents also are expected to vote on fee increases to 44 graduate programs. UC officials say the fee hikes are necessary to close this year’s funding gap of $535 million, largely the result of reduced state funding and inflation…
You can follow on-the-spot accounts of meeting on this web site or via Twitter.
To protest the increase, UC student groups have called for a three-day strike, starting today. The UC Solidarity web site is the online organizing hub for the action.
Here’s an affecting if somewhat melodramatic video promoting the strike.
