Possible Tuition Doubling at UCs and at Cal State Universities

Governor Jerry Brown has said that in a balanced budget obtained only by budget cuts, the tuition at UC and Cal State Universities could double, from its current amount of about $10,000 per year (tuition and fees is about $13,000), to the range of $20,000 to $25,000 per year.  Since at present the students are paying about half the cost of their university education, this would mean that the students would be paying roughly all of their education cost.  The reason this is still lower than many private universities (Princeton 2011 tuition is $37,000) is that the student to faculty ratio at UC is about 18:1, whereas in the top private universities it is about 7:1.  The solution proposed by Gov. Brown is to extend the temporary tax increases put into place by Gov. Schwarzenegger for the next three years.  This would cover half of the states’ $25 billion dollar deficit.