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Correction appended

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill last week that would have capped tuition increases for public universities.

Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill in compliance with the terms of his higher education funding agreement with California universities which calls for fee increases averaging about 10 percent a year. Under the provisions of the bill, undergraduate fee increases for California public universities would have been limited to no more than eight percent in any year.

Authored by Assemblywoman Carol Liu, D-La Cañada Flintridge, chairwoman of the Assembly Higher Education Committee, the bill aimed to create a student-fee policy that would reduce fee increases and create predictable tuition rates for students.

The veto may force the state to “deny access to higher education for all but the wealthiest Californians,” Liu said in a statement.

The bill would have capped annual student fee increases at eight percent during fiscal emergencies, like this year. Also under the bill, UC student fees would have been capped at 40 percent of the total cost of their education while CSU student fees would have been capped at 30 percent.

According to the bill, in non-emergency years, annual increases in student fees would have been calculated based on changes in per capita income. These increases would have equaled one or two percent a year said Bruce Hamlett, chief consultant for the Higher Education Committee.

“In the past three or four years we’ve been balancing the costs of the higher education on the backs of the students. That’s not good policy,” Hamlett said.

“College should be affordable. Tuition should go up in a gradual, moderate, predictable way,” Hamlett added.

In his veto statement, Schwarzenegger said he cannot sign the bill because it is “inconsistent with the student fee policy provisions of the Higher Education Compact that I reached with the University of California and the California State University systems.”

State universities entered into the compact with the governor last May in order to relieve further state budget cuts. The compact provides an outline of state funding levels up to the 2010-2011 fiscal year.

Under the compact, the UC will absorb about $372 million in budget cuts in exchange for an assurance that funding will increase in the 2005-2006 academic year.

Undergraduate fees will also be increased by 14 percent in 2004-2005 fiscal year and 8 percent in the next two years. Fees would go up no more than 10 percent per year in the long term.

Liu has criticized the compact’s proposed fee increases. In a statement, she said the deal denies access to qualified students and “does nothing to ensure that students from low income backgrounds can afford to attend college.”

Yet others have praised the compact as a difficult but much needed solution to the financial problems of the state.

“After years of deep budget cuts with no end in sight, this compact brings the promise of renewed fiscal stability for public universities in California,” UC President Robert Dynes said last May.

Though many students are fighting for a decrease in fees, second-year computer science and engineering student Samuel Kwok said the bill would have been too limiting for the university during tough financial times. He added that if the school needs more money, it should be able to raise fees until it is on more stable financial footing.

“If a temporarily larger increase helps, I guess it’s OK as long as the rate comes back down,” Kwok said.

Correction: Monday, October 4, 2004

In “Governor votes against tuition cap,” (News, Oct. 1), the headline should have specified that the governor vetoed the fee cap.