Top News of the Week #2

San Jose State University plans to increase tuition 10 percent, reduce enrollment next fall

For California Bay Area students, state university enrollment is becoming even more difficult to obtain.

San Jose State University declared that tuition costs are expected to rise 10 percent or more this fall. Salaries for both faculty and staff will likely be frozen and fewer part-time instructors hired.

SJSU will be reducing its student body by 3,000 by only accepting freshman who applied before Nov. 20, 2008. Of the applicants who missed the first deadline, only county residents who applied before Nov. 30 will be accepted. All remaining applicants must either "wait" for acceptance or apply to another university. Not even graduate students can escape the state budget crunch; almost 25 percent fewer applicants will be accepted this fall.

Seniors who have been attending more than five years due to work and other responsibilities will be encouraged to finish their coursework, even though the SJSU 2008-2010 catalog states that every undergraduate has 10 years to complete his or her degree and every graduate student has seven (463). And though each CSU campus has different graduation requirements; all SJSU students have to complete an additional 12 units of SJSU studies in order to graduate. This additional semester compounds the amount of time every student needs to be enrolled.

In response to these serious issues, President Jon Whitmore suggested in his public address today that faculty and staff layoffs will be avoided and possibly some degree requirements be waived for seniors.

Is it fair? Yes, because students who are actually both ready and residents are still being enrolled into the CSU system.

And every person deserves the chance to attend a university in his or her home state.

News Values:

Impact: Affects all potential California college students: both local and international.

Timeliness: College administrative plans stated today in a public forum.

Prominence: College education today is an enormous business and has a huge affect on the economy: both state and nationwide.

Proximity: Local paper discusses the local state university's plans to overcome the state budget crunch.

Conflict: College budget: there is great difficulty in deciding who can be enrolled, what the costs will be, how many faculty members will be full-time, part-time, and much more.