California considers huge tuition hikes for out-of-state students

The San Jose Mercury News reports:

In the latest attempt to restore in-state students' access to the University of California, legislators are proposing changes that would put the system on track to become the nation's most expensive public college option for nonresidents.

The Assembly proposal, to be debated in the final weeks of state budget negotiations, calls for a 10 percent cap on out-of-state enrollment, paired with tuition hikes that would push annual nonresident tuition from about $37,000 to $54,000 over six years. The changes would help pay for an undergraduate expansion that is the plan's centerpiece: 30,000 new spaces for California residents by 2022.


But the sweeping proposal has alarmed university leaders and some students, who fear it will cause further budget instability and spur talented students from other states and countries, an integral part of campus life, to go elsewhere.

At a certain point, "it actually becomes cheaper for a nonresident student to attend a private institution -- a private institution that doesn't have the rhetoric that 'we don't want you here. You're taking a spot that another student could have.' " said Will Morrow, UC Berkeley's newly elected student body president, who is from Minnesota.

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