Universities Weblog

Tuition is going up by 10% on California State University campuses and by 7.4% on University of California campus, according to University Business. The increase triggered protests that resulted in 16 student arrests at UCLA.

The increase at Cal State affects 23 campuses, including Humboldt State University, San Diego State University, San Francisco State University, and San Jose State University. Cal State's undergraduate tuition will climb to just under $3,800 a year.

The increase at the University of California affects ten campuses, including UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and UCLA. Undergraduate tuition at the University of California will break the $8,000 per year barrier with this increase.

© asianjournalusa

Hard up for cash, the state legislature in Massachusetts is considering a plan to tax college and university endowments that are valued at more than a billion dollars, according to University Business.

The legislature's rationale is simple. All that money in one place makes the lawmakers question whether the state's universities are really non-profit. Nine universities in the state have endowments worth more than a billion dollars.

How much is a billion dollars?

© o2ma

The nice people over at Sanguine et Purpure (an unoffical blog for the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity) have brought two recent allegations of fraternity hazings to my attention – one at the University of Wisconsin and one at Tulane.

The Tulane incident has new Orleans police still looking for five members of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity there. Five other arrests have already been made in that incident. The hazing there allegedly included pouring boiling water on pledges.

In the incident at the University of Wisconsin, members of Sigma Phi Epsilon have been accused of dumping a bucket of "indecent substances" on other frat members. Frat leadership is disavowing the incident and saying that, while it did occur after an initiation, the bucket dumping wasn't approved by frat leaders.

Mike Miesen, president of the UW chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon, "We are a non-hazing fraternity – Sigma Phi Epsilon doesn't haze. We have a very proud system that makes them feel like they are not being hazed."

Close to 100 people have been arrested on drug related charges at San Diego state university, according to an Associated Press story in USAToday. Six fraternities on came have been closed as a result of the drug busts.

Sanguine et Purpure , which bills itself as the "unofficial, unauthorized, unfettered" blog for Sigma Phi Epsilon is reporting that the frats closed on the SDSU campus were Theta Chi, Lambda Chi Alpha, Phi Kappa Psi, Phi Kappa Theta, Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Sigma Alpha Mu. Sigma Phi Epsilon has not been implicated in the drug busts so far.