Universities Weblog

A number of news sources in California are reporting on a state appeals court ruling there regarding the 2003 tuition hike in the University of California system. An appeals court in San Francisco has upheld a lower court ruling, stating that UCLA and UC Berkeley overcharged students in 2003 by almost $34 million.

With interest, the two institutions will have to repay some 40,000 or so students about $40 million.

In 2003, California made deep cuts to the state's higher education budget. Institutions in the University of California system passed their losses on to students – raising tuition after classes had already started. The legal problem for both UCLA and UC Berkeley was that those two institutions had previously promised not to raise tuition.

The San Francisco Sentinel reported that "The Court of Appeal said the university created an implied contract when it said on its Web site and some catalogs until 2003 that professional degree fees for students in programs such as law, medicine and business would remain constant during their enrollment."

The majority of the $40 million will go to about 9,000 students who were in various professional programs at the time. But 31,000 student in other programs will also get some of the award.

Berkeley law school student Mohammad Kashmiri filed the original suit against the University of California.

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