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Tuition Hike Protest Continues in Berkeley

Erin Baldassari (BCN)
Friday November 21, 2014 - 03:40:00 PM

Students at the University of California at Berkeley are continuing a sit-in on campus today following a decision Thursday by the Board of Regents to raise tuition by as much as 5 percent a year for the next five years, university police said. 

UC Berkeley police Lt. Marc DeColoude said there have been no significant changes over the evening and no one has been arrested so far. 

The hall typically closes at 10 p.m. each evening, DeColoude said, but stayed open Thursday night as students continued to occupy it. He said he wasn't sure what would happen this weekend. 

"I don't know that the university has thought that far ahead," DeColoude said. "We'll just have to see." 

Classes are continuing in the building, DeColoude said, and protestors are coming and going but maintaining a presence of at least 60 people at any given time. 

Students began the occupation after a University of California Board of Regents committee voted 7-2 on Wednesday in favor of a tuition hike that would increase tuitions by as much as 5 percent annually over the next five years despite opposition from figures including Gov. Jerry Brown and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.  

Brown has argued that the university system needs to find ways to control its expenses rather than raise tuition. 

On Thursday, the full Board of Regents voted 14-7 in favor of the tuition hike, drawing further protests from students attending the meeting. 

Under the proposal, a 5 percent hike would raise tuition for in-state students by $612 to $12,804 in the 2015-16 school year, according to UC President Janet Napolitano's office. Tuition for out-of-state students would increase by more than $1,700 to about $36,820. 

UC executive vice president Nathan Brostrom said that the 30 percent of UC students who will be impacted by the tuition increase could afford it since they come from families with annual incomes above $75,000. 

Ronald Cruz, an attorney for the activist group By Any Means Necessary has said the protestors plan to stay in the campus building until the regents agree to drop the tuition increase plan.