Passage of Prop. 30 Prevents UC Tuition Hike
By Michelle Murphy
California News Service
California voters approved Prop. 30 Tuesday, staving off a hefty tuition increase which had been scheduled to begin in January.
With 100 percent of the precincts reporting Wednesday morning, 54 percent voted in favor and 46 percent were opposed.
Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposition will raise $6 billion annually for education and the state budget by increasing sales tax by a quarter-cent for four years and raising income taxes on the wealthy by up to three percent for seven years.
It was the first time in decades that state voters had agreed to raise their own taxes.
"I know a lot of people had some doubts and some questions: Can you really go to the people and ask them to vote for a tax?'' Brown told supporters. "Here we are ... We have a vote of the people, I think the only state in the country that says let's raise our taxes, for our kids for our schools, and for our California dream.”
The measure received strong support in coastal counties, throughout the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Support was also high in the Sacramento area. Many inland and rural areas rejected the measure.
University regents endorsed Prop. 30 earlier this year. If the initiative had failed, $250 million would have been cut from UC budget this year, and an additional $125 million next year.
UC students would have faced an increase of $2,400 in fees, starting in January. In addition, the student tuition could have reached $24,000 by the 2015-2016 academic year, according to UC student regents.
Student regents had toured UC campuses prior to the election giving presentations warning about the effects of Prop 30 should it fail.
“That doesn’t just blow the roof off of public school tuition in California. That blows the roof off of public school tuition in the United States,” student regent Jonathan Stein warned before the vote.
California is only the fourth state to raise sales taxes in more than three decades.
University of California President Mark Yudof released the following statement following Tuesday’s vote.
"The passage of Proposition 30 represents an opportunity for California and its political leadership to put public higher education back on a pathway toward fiscal stability,” he said. “This is an opportunity of great importance, not only to the University of California and other higher education segments, but also to the state as a whole, and we cannot afford to let it slip away.”
While the passage of Prop. 30 has stemmed worries about financial stability for higher education for now, it’s only a temporary fix to larger financial problems for the UC system.
“All of the budget options are band-aids on a much, much larger wound,” Stein said. “None of them will stop the bleeding like real meaningful investment in public higher education which we stopped doing a couple years back and we need to begin doing again.”