The University of California Board of Regents approved a 5% tuition increase for each new class of undergraduate students beginning the 2026 school year for the next seven years.
Upon enrollment, a cohort of students will be locked into paying an inflation-based tuition rate capped at 5% which will not be increased throughout their college career or up to six years.
An incoming class of students will pay more no more than 5% in tuition than the class ahead of them, but they will pay 5% less in tuition that the class below them. The university system introduced this cohort tuition plan called the “Tuition Stability Plan” for the the 2022 school year.
The 5% inflation based tuition hike vote comes as the University of California President James Milliken says the school system faces “serious and compounding financial pressures.” The school system faces calls from the Trump administration to pay a $1.2 billion fine for alleged Civil Rights violations.
Although a federal judge ruled against the University system having to pay the fine, Milliken said the pressure from the Trump administration still exists. The school is facing a freeze in $230 million in research funding by the Trump administration. Courts have ordered the Trump administration to restore more than 1,600 research grants.
“Tuition increases are never welcome, but moderate and predictable increases are necessary to sustain the quality of education that our students deserve,” Milliken said.
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University of California’s revised tuition plan is estimated to generate $273 million for the school system in the first year of being enacted.