Janet Napolitano, the newly elected UC president, presented a proposal to freeze prices for tuition and better articulate transfer agreements at her first regent meeting on Nov 13.

The meeting focused on what she plans to do as the new UC president. Napolitano has a well thought out plan that focus on having prices for tuition “frozen”, meaning that their should be no spike in the 2014-2015 school year if her proposal get approved. Napolitano also provided some insight on what she plans on doing to ease the communication between the UC campuses and the local community colleges. She stated that she would have this issue be one of her top priorities to help increase transfer rates. Napolitano, also said that she wanted to help the 10 campuses produce “zero net energy” by the year 2025.

Her proposal primarily focuses on certain aspects of the UC system as a whole. She first said that the current prices for undergraduate tuition would remain the same for the 2014-2015 school year.

Napolitano, stated that “accessibility and affordability are two of the universities guiding stars.”

To that note, she also addressed the reason why there have been huge tuition increases in the last few years. She says that their was a increase because of the recession and loss of state funding. Napolitano said during the board meeting that she would have no increase happen because she believes that we must make tuition lower so that more people are interested in investing in their education.

She also made sure that she addressed the state of California to help this proposal become a reality, allowing thousands of students to have the chance to grow and development intellectually.

The “freeze” is intended to help the students, by making it more affordable while Napolitano and the rest of the board work on the new policy. The new policy is expected to be introduced in January of 2014 once all the UC campuses resume operations. Napolitano has made it clear that it is her biggest goal to get the highest amount of transfer from the local community colleges so that they can branch out, as well as helping her and the board expand their outreach to students.

Skyline student Bianca Porras has been at Skyline for four years and plans to apply for transfer to a UC in the Fall of 2014 has worked with the financial aid office at Skyline as a financial aid ambassador for over a year, weighing-in on the pressing issue surrounding the futures of hundreds of future transfers.

“I think it is a good idea. Paying for school is already hard for a lot of students. When students can’t afford school, they can’t go. Therefore, admissions go down. Working at the financial aid office, you see students that struggle with paying.”

She went on to comment on the mentality the students seem to have when hit with these challenges:

“It gets hard to see that when there is only so much you can do to help. Financial aid helps were it can but sadly not all students are able to get it. So if they can stop prices from rising from what they are, I say go for it.”

Many agree that going to college, whether it be community or UC, is very expensive. The prices should go down so they can support the proposal brought forth by Napolitano as a light at end of the tunnel for hundreds of students

Bruna Bressa, a two year communications major, plans on attending UC BerkeIey in the spring of 2014.

She says, “I think the tuition freeze is good thing. I’m going to be a transfer student next year and, to me, tuition is already high. If they were to raise it, it would almost seem impossible to attend a UC without any financial help.”

To further comment on the difficulties associated with finding funds for transfer students, Bressa went on to say, “Financial aid and student grants aren’t always promised and a lot of people, like myself, don’t want to get Involved with loans because it takes so long to pay them off. It seems that she’s trying to keep tuition low to help out students, which I think is extremely important. It gives students a better opportunity and more hope.”

Hope is brought to so many community college students with this new proposal.
Napolitano also allocated $15 million to go to students that are undocumented, graduate students, and students that are looking to receive post-doctoral fellowships.

Napolitano is doing what is in her power to help students that want to continue learning. This freeze is a step closer to completing a task already hard for all college students.

Napolitano, has some very inspiring words for students and the UC community, “Together, let us strive not only to maintain UC’s position as the world’s premier public university, but also to push the university forward to ever new heights”.