University of California students will be paying an additional 25-hundred dollars to attend college starting next year. 

The UC Board of Regents today (Thursday) approved a 32-percent increase in student fees. 

Capital Public Radio's Steve Shadley reports...
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The board of regents voted for the fee increase at a meeting at UCLA while a large group of students protested outside.

The fee hike starts next year and comes in two phases for a total of 25-hundred dollars for each undergraduate and graduate student by 2011.

UC spokesman Ricardo Vazquez says part of the fee increase will help some students deal with the tuition hike...

 

Vazquez:   "We don't want sticker shock, sort of speak, to dissuade students, especially lower income students, from applying to the University of California. I think its very important for students to keep in mind that 33% of the revenue generated by this fee increase is being set aside for student financial aid..." 

     

Vazquez says the UC regents had to raise the fees to cope with more than one-billion dollars in cuts lawmakers approved for the system's ten campuses in the state budget. 

He says in addition to the fee increase, UC will ask lawmakers to restore more than 900-million dollars in next year's state budget.