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Currently UCLA waives student fees for many of its teaching assistants and readers, graduate students who are left to educate undergraduates at a huge university where professors can’t do all the teaching. Facing a budget crisis, the university is considering abandoning its full payment of these fees – a move it cannot make.

If implemented, the proposal would be one of the most extreme ways to deal with the budget crisis – a crisis that will also result in higher student fees, the elimination of expected faculty pay increases and reduced health center services.

TAs and readers perform vital duties at UCLA. Sections run by TAs often provide the only opportunity for undergraduate students to interact with an authority on the subject matter they are studying. Professors lecturing to masses of people simply cannot provide the same instruction or mentorship TAs can. Readers, meanwhile, perform the task of correcting hundreds of blue-book exams or papers – often while facing their own graduate work – so the professor can prepare for the next lecture or conduct research.

But for UCLA students, the chance that TAs won’t be fully compensated means more than the possibility they won’t have someone to help them explore their area of study. Even the fact many TAs would have to find additional jobs to pay for fees does not reflect the full detriment this policy would have on the university.

If passed, this proposal would weaken the value of a UCLA degree. UCLA’s reputation rests not on the quality of its undergraduate instruction but rather on the quality of its graduate programs and its faculty.

Eliminating payment of graduate student fees would obviously compel future graduate students to look to other colleges – colleges already aggressively seeking top students. UCLA would also lose its ability to recruit top faculty. The university already must try to recruit faculty when it is unable to offer competitive salaries. That task would be even more difficult if it could not offer TAs and readers to help professors teach massive classes.

Fewer TAs – which would surely result if fees are not waived – would mean less time for faculty to do research and public service. Thus, the proposal would hurt all three parts of the university’s mission – teaching, research and service.

But what can be done? The state faces a $38 billion budget hole and the university, like everyone else, must take cuts. Unlike other state agencies, the UC faces the dual challenge of enduring a budget crisis while expanding. The university is expected to grow by 60,000 students between the years 2000 and 2010.

Envisioning this growth, the university and the state agreed to a basic partnership in the late 1990s – the state would fund the UC to accept a new tidal wave of students. But now the state clearly cannot fund the UC as it had promised. Therefore the UC needs to think more seriously about capping enrollment.

A cap would also be detrimental – it would limit access to education. But at least students would gain access to education based on their merits. Already, it appears the university will cut from nearly every program – on top of asking students to pay about 35 percent more. The current approach limits access to education based on who can pay for education, who needs tutoring or outreach services, or who is socio-economically disadvantaged.

Now, access may also be limited based on who has priority enrollment, and therefore is not forced to sign up for a 400-person general education class without a TA.