Our View: Outrage spikes over U.C. hikes

None of us like it when fees get raised, especially when we have to pay the increases out of our own pockets. So it is understandable why University of California Students (and labor union members) protested the fee hikes by the University of California's Board of Regents on Thursday. But in reality, with the state's revenues shrinking year after year, all services funded by the government, including colleges, are going to have cut costs and raise fees — or do the unthinkable, reform the state's spending habits.

Protests broke out last week at the UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz campuses after regents decided to raise undergraduate student fees by 32 percent and approved job and program cuts.

A poll conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California found that residents of the state were deeply concerned about rising higher education costs and did not like the idea of raising student fees — but at the same time they did not want their taxes raised to offset education costs. It seems like a case of wanting to have our cake and eat it, too.

This is bound to happen when government steps into areas that should be served by private means, and where taxpayers are forced to pay the price. The primary beneficiaries of the service should take on the primary burden. But, we agree with the students and poll respondents in their outrage over the UC regents' and state budget processes. There are undoubtedly more places to reduce activities and make cuts in the UC budget, but it is hard to pinpoint any likely targets — Compensation and benefits? Administration? Operations? Technology budgets? — because the UC budget process is so secretive. Given the system as it is, the UC budget should be more transparent so that it is accountable to the citizens who fund the higher-learning institutions.

Aside from transparency, where the real outrage should lie is with state Legislature for allowing public education budgets to balloon and for continuing to mismanage the pocketbook of the state. A major part of the problem derives from government promising, entitling rather, students to an education that the state could not afford to finance.