Pro Non-Resident Tuition for Academic Graduate Students Comments:

Posted 12/21/05: ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF THE MEMORIAL ON NON-RESIDENT TUITION: Recent tuition and fee increases for graduate students harm the University of California's ability to attract and support the best graduate students. High quality graduate students are critically important to the teaching and research missions of the University. They contribute to the work of the faculty, in the laboratory, or library on research projects. They bring their own imagination and insights into the research process. Graduate students functioning as teaching assistants contribute to the undergraduate education program. Better graduate students help the faculty provide a better educational environment. Graduate students participation will motivate undergraduates, who are virtually their peers, to perform well in an academic environment.

The non-resident tuition imposes an extra burden on graduate students who come from outside of California. The burden is particularly significant for graduate students from outside the United States who cannot achieve California resident status.

Academic graduate students who are recruited into the University of California do not pay their own fees and tuition. The best graduate students are highly sought after and generally expect all tuition and fees to be supported by the University, in addition to stipends for living expenses. Policy makers often do not understand the circular nature of fees charged to academic graduate students. These fees and tuitions must be covered by University resources including private support dollars, research funds, or instructional funds in the case of teaching assistants. In this sense, graduate fees and tuition involve a shift of funds from one University resource to another, without a net gain in revenue.

The case is particularly difficult with respect to non-resident students because of the substantially higher tuition costs. Non-resident tuition is shifted to the department or research program that recruits the student. The use of campus funds to provide relief from the burden of non-resident tuition reduces the funds available for other purposes. There is little or no net gain to the University from charging non-resident tuition to graduate students. In addition, the high non-resident tuition is an incentive to hire post-doctoral researchers who may cost less than graduate students, to the detriment of graduate education.

Recent elimination of non-resident tuition for academic graduate students who advance to candidacy is an inadequate solution. The program provides an incentive to departments to advance students to candidacy prematurely in order to reduce costs to the department or research programs. The three year limit on the fee remission will lead to premature granting of degrees with respect to dissertations that require a little more work to move from merely acceptable to excellent.

Simply eliminating non-resident tuition for academic graduate students puts non-resident graduate students on a level playing field with others at little cost to the University.

Submitted by: Daniel L. Simmons, Professor of Law and Chair of the Davis Division of the Academic Senate

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