Students Protest Cal State Hikes

Hundreds of students walked out of classes at Cal State Fullerton on Thursday to rally against proposed state budget cuts and fee increases.

Some professors canceled classes to accommodate the demonstration, the second by Cal State students this week. On Monday, some 2,000 CSU protesters marched in downtown Los Angeles.

Waving signs Thursday and dancing to a fast-paced alternative rock band at the noontime event in the quad, at least 300 students expressed their displeasure with a proposed state budget that calls for a $240-million cut and tuition increases for the 23-campus system.

Students, faculty and administrators said they feared the cuts would result in fewer classes, elimination of programs for low-income and underrepresented students and reduced financial aid.

Thomas Klammer, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Fullerton campus, said hundreds of classes could be canceled.

“Thousands of students will not be able to get the classes they need,” he said.

State Sen. Dick Ackerman (R-Irvine), whose district encompasses the campus, acknowledged that fee increases are likely, but “by national standards, [public college in California is] still perhaps the best buy in the nation.”

As it is, students such as Elizabeth Stephens, 20, worry about finding classes.

Stephens, a human services major, is probably going to take lower-level requirements of biology and anthropology at a community college this summer. “Half the time, I can’t get the classes I need here,” Stephens said.

Middle-income students such as Stephens could most be affected by financial aid restraints, said Murray Haberman, acting executive director for the California Postsecondary Education Commission, the body responsible for planning and coordination for higher education. Whether that would affect enrollment, however, “is still an open question,” he said, adding that many opportunities exist to finance higher education.

“California has always had a strong commitment to higher education,” said Haberman. But when the state budget is crunched, “additional resources have to be generated by the colleges to make up by the cuts the state is proposing.”