Are Tuition Hikes at California Colleges Turning Off San Ramon Valley Graduates?

Over the past week, California college students have joined Occupy protests throughout the state where, among other grievances, they are criticizing tuition hikes at UC and CSU campuses.

On Wednesday, violent clashes broke out at Cal State Long Beach as trustees met and approved an increase of 9 percent in tuition for the 2012-13 academic year.

Over the past three years, graduating high school seniors from the San Ramon Valley may have been making their displeasure with tuition hikes known by opting for an education at a college outside California.

Data from the San Ramon Valley Unified School District shows that fewer graduates from the district's three high schools have been heading to University of California or California State University campuses.

This decline in SRVUSD graduates enrolling in state institutions reflects a trend occurring among graduates in neighboring communities and throughout the state.

Over the past three years, the number of graduates from California, Dougherty Valley, and  high schools, saying they will attend state four-year colleges, has dropped from 42 percent in 2009 to 35 percent in 2011.

Meanwhile, the number of seniors saying in exit surveys that they are going to private California colleges has increased from 19 to 25 percent. The number going out of state has similarly increased from 17 to 25 percent.

Since 2004, UC fees have doubled from $4,984 to $10,302 for full-time resident undergraduates— not including room, board, books and individual campus fees.

CSU fees have increased $2,572 to $6,422 during the same period. The tuition hikes approved Wednesday will take the cost of an academic year to $7,000.

"Yes, the data does indicate that out of state and private schools are popular alternatives to UC and CSU campuses for our students," said Rob Stockberger, the district's director of secondary education.

He said there may be a number of factors influencing college choice and those may include the economy and demographics.

"We will need to drill deeper into the data to see which UC and CSU campuses our students are getting into, or not, as that may be an element of what we are seeing," he said.

The numbers heading to California community colleges, such as Diablo Valley College, has decreased from 33 to 27 percent.

Officials in the Acalanes Union High School District, which serves Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda, bound for out-of- state schools, from 20 percent in 2006 to 30 percent in 2011. This increase prompted educators in that district to wonder whether the exodus is due to steep tuition increases at UC and CSU campuses.

“We were curious to see what impact that had on students’ future plans,” said Kevin French, the AUHSD's associate superintendent for administrative services.

This district, like the SRVUSD, serves some of the Bay Area's most affluent communities.

"For the last decade, fees have marched steadily upward, shifting the Legislature’s failure to support our state universities onto the backs of our students and their families," said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson before Wednesday's trustees meeting.

Meanwhile, the UC's nine undergraduate campuses are seeing an increase in the number of students coming from out of state, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in July. Fourteen percent of freshman enrolling this fall were expected to be from out of state, up from 11 percent last year and 9 percent the year before.

While UC leaders have said California residents are not being displaced, they acknowledge that an increasing number of highly qualified and diverse nonresidents want to enroll at UC campuses.

And, these out-of-state students bring in more money to the system than their in-state counterparts. Nonresidents pay about $35,000 for a year at UC, compared with $12,000 for California residents, the Chronicle reported.

About 6 percent of UC undergraduates are nonresidents and UC's Board of Regents wants to increase that number to 10 percent.