UC Grad Students Win Big in Court
After UC tried to raise the cost for the professional schools, a number of students sued. Today, they received some good news. Here is the LATimes article, "Judge Puts UC Hike of Fees on Hold" on the subject:

A Superior Court judge in San Francisco has barred the University of California from increasing fees this fall for about 3,000 students enrolled in UC's medical, law and other professional schools.
Ruling in a lawsuit brought by students who said the fee hikes breached a contract with them, Judge James L. Warren issued a preliminary injunction late Thursday blocking the increases for the 2004-05 school year. They would average about 30%.
...
The judge's order applies only to those who enrolled in a professional degree program before 2003 and are still enrolled. Eisenman said it affects about 3,000 of the 9,000 students at the university's professional schools, which include law, medicine, business, dentistry, veterinary medicine and film.
At least for now, those students will not be required to pay fee increases for 2004-05 that would average about 30% — or from about $3,000 to $4,500 — more than last year.
...
Eisenman said it could cost UC about $15 million in lost revenue.

This was only a preliminary hearing, and now there will be a trial to evaluate the student's claims. The major argument in the suit appears to be a claim of breach of contract by UC, which according to the plaintiffs, claimed it wouldn't raise fees while students were obtaining their degree.
The Oakland Tribune article contains a quotation from our own Mo Kashmiri.

"That rocks," [Kashmiri] said Friday. "I think this is going to make a real difference in the lives of some folks that, like me, just didn't know where they were going to come up with the money."

For some commentary on this subject, I would recommend a post by Phil Carter, a former UCLA Law student. He says, in part:

I've been around the UC system for a long time, and I've seen cyclical trends and long-term trends. But today's fiscal problems beat them all, and make the financial crunches of the early and mid-1990s look small by comparison. By raising fees this much, and by changing its admission calculus to make ends meet, the UC Board of Regents has sacrificed its educational mission in order to make its bottom line. California will suffer for that decision.

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