State budget crunch prompts fee hike for summer classes
BERKELEY – University of California students enrolling in summer classes at the University of California, Berkeley, will be facing a fee increase, a necessary step to help address cuts in state funding, campus officials announced today (Friday, May 23).
Summer fee increases are being assessed at all UC campuses. At UC Berkeley, an additional fee of $160 for undergraduates and $182 for graduate students will be charged to UC students attending the 2003 Summer Sessions. Visiting students pay substantially higher fees in the summer and are not subject to this increase.
UC Berkeley Summer Sessions, which provides for-credit academic classes, begins the first of four sessions on Tuesday, May 27. In all, about 14,000 students will enroll in the summer program. Of the total, 11,000 students are from UC Berkeley and other UC campuses. All summer classes end by Aug. 15.
Fees for summer classes range widely depending on the course and the number of units. With the fee hike, summer students who take the average load of six units will pay $922. This fee increase is assessed only once and is not dependent on how many units a student takes.
Undergraduate students who receive a summer fee grant from the Financial Aid Office and graduate students receiving fellowships from the Graduate Division will automatically have their grants adjusted to cover this increase.
"We truly regret any hardship this may create for some of our students. We are committed to ensuring that Summer Sessions at Berkeley remains an outstanding value," said Gary Penders, director of the academic summer program.
Penders noted that many students attend summer classes to gain units that accelerate the time it takes for them to graduate, which reduces the overall financial burden of earning their degrees. Taking summer classes also provides a broader academic experience that many students value, he said.
The UC fee increase was calculated based on the average numbers of units that students take during the summer and the anticipated UC fee increases for the 2003-04 academic year. If the UC Board of Regents does not enact a fee increase as expected, the summer fee increase will be rebated to students.