19th
Source: SFGate, Rage at UC fee hike in L.A., Berkeley protests
This is an important point. These fee increases do not affect the neediest students, who pay no fees to begin with.
Worth noting here is that median family income in California is just about $70,000 for most families, so this covers a substantial number of what could be deemed “families with need”:
Median family income in CA (2008 ACS)
Total: 70,029
2-person families 64,878
3-person families 70,890
4-person families 79,477
5-person families 68,073
6-person families 67,499
7-or-more-person families 74,290
To be sure, these fees are damaging to many; but we need to remember that UC, like most quality universities, is not very representative of the economic makeup of the state (although by most measures more representative than other schools). So if our concern is helping needier folks, there are many other programs competing for the same funding that more directly impact them.
(Healthy Families, which provides health care to low-income kids whose families don’t qualify for Medi-Cal, comes to mind, especially given that it has already seen serious threats this year, and the water cooler is saying these threats remain, given the new state budget reports.)
