UC to refund fee increases

By Cynthia Lee

UC officials are consulting with the regents and others about where in the budget the $40-million repayment to former professional students should come after the California Supreme Court on Jan. 23 let stand a lower court decision in a class-action lawsuit against the university.

The case now goes back to San Francisco Superior Court, which will decide on a formula for determining the amount each class member should be repaid as well as on a process for refunding the millions of dollars owed individuals, mostly former UC students.

"The university will pay into a fund, but we wouldn't be involved in reimbursing students directly," said UC spokesperson Ricardo Vasquez. All distributions will be handled by an outside claims administration.

The $40 million in refunds will be going to a class of about 35,000 individuals who paid the higher professional fees beginning in 2003 and to those whom the judge agreed had insufficient notice of the increase. Attorneys for the plaintiffs said individual students could receive as much as $10,000.

The class includes those who were enrolled in a professional degree program prior to Dec. 16, 2002, and whose professional fees were raised on or after that date; UCLA medical and law students who were charged fees for the Spring 2003 semester before they were notified of the fee increase for that semester; and UCLA undergraduates who were billed, assessed or charged fees for the Summer 2003 session before being notified that the per-unit fees would be increased for that session.

At the time of the fee increase, UC regents were trying to deal with mid-year budget cuts imposed by the state in 2002-03. After cutting as much as they dared without harming the quality of the program, the regents were forced to look at fee increases, Vasquez said.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge James L. Warren ruled back in March 2006 that UC reneged on promises made in UC publications and Web sites that professional student fees would not increase while students were enrolled. Students in the Kashmiri vs. UC Regents lawsuit alleged that increases in the professional fee enacted for spring 2003 and in subsequent years violated a contract that UC made with them.

UC officials maintained that all the printed materials included a disclaimer that fees were subject to change, but the lower court held that the promise to keep the same professional fees outweighed the disclaimers in importance.

All class members are being encouraged to send their current e-mail and postal addresses to the administrator at lnelson@rustconsulting.com.