University of California Regents voted Thursday to approve the revised budget for the 2018-19 school year, which includes a $60 reduction in tuition, according to a press release sent out by the UC Office of the President.

The Regents met on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss and vote on the proposed budget. Sanya Kamidi / Daily Nexus

Tuition will now be $11,442 annually, a decrease from the current $11,502. Student service fees will remain at $1,128.

This will result in a revenue decline of $16.2 million for the UC.

The $60 reduction comes from the elimination of a temporary tuition surcharge implemented in Fall 2007 to “recoup damages” from class-action lawsuits, according to the press release.

The lawsuits – Kashmiri v. Regents and Luquetta v. Regents – were first filed by several graduate students in 2007 and 2012, respectively, following an increase in fees.

The California courts ruled in favor of the graduate students in both, stating in Kashmiri court documents that UC “breached its contracts” by raising fees after promising “on its website and its catalogues” that fees would not be raised while students were currently enrolled in the program.

The litigation process cost the university nearly $100 million, according to the UC Office of the President (UCOP) press release.

By Fall 2018, nearly all of those costs from the lawsuits “will have been fully recovered,” according to a UCOP summary submitted to the Regents.

The reduced in-state tuition also comes following Governor Brown’s signing of the 2018-19 budget package into law on June 27.

The state’s budget allocates an additional $98.1 million to the UC’s general fund for operating expenses as well as a one-time allotment of $248.8 million for general university needs and deferred maintenance.

The new funding is a “significant increase over the level of State support” from the previous school year and allows for sufficient funds “without the immediate need for a tuition increase,” according to the UCOP summary.

However, while the budget will allow UC campuses to address one-time funding needs, it is “not a long-term substitute for ongoing State support or tuition revenue” due to increasing enrollment.

The 2018-19 budget plan expects an enrollment growth of 2,000 California resident undergraduate students, 1,000 undergraduate nonresident students and 500 graduate students, according to the UCOP summary.

This amounts to approximately 276,679 students enrolled for the 2018-19 school year across UC campuses, based off the Fall Quarter 2018 enrollment numbers of 273,179.

“The University plans to work closely with the incoming Governor’s administration and the Legislature to develop a sustainable longer-term enrollment and funding model consistent with the University’s long-term goals of access, affordability, and excellence,” the UCOP statement reads.

The full UCOP executive summary for the budget can be viewed here, and the budget plan for core funds can be viewed here.

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Evelyn Spence
Evelyn Spence harbors a great love for em dashes and runs on nothing but iced coffee, Jolly Ranchers and breaking news. She serves as the managing editor and can be reached at evelyn@dailynexus.com, managing@dailynexus.com or at @evelynrosesc on Twitter.