Cal State students ask judge to reverse fee hikes

By Matt Krupnick, Contra Costa Times
Updated: 08/13/2009 11:03:21 PM PDT

California State University students have asked a San Francisco judge to reverse fee hikes implemented last month after students had paid for the upcoming fall term.

The suit, filed Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court, closely resembles a successful action against the University of California that resulted in UC paying back about $42 million to former students. The same law firms that represented UC students are involved in the Cal State case.

“I believe it’s exactly the same thing that happened” at UC, said Danielle Leonard, an attorney with the students’ San Francisco firm, Altshuler Berzon. “This option should not have even been on the table.”

The class-action suit accuses the 440,000-student state university system of unfairly raising undergraduate and graduate fees in July, the second time in three months fees were hiked. Students at some campuses had as little as a week to pay the additional money to avoid having their accounts frozen, Leonard said.

“Being asked to pay $300 in a week is a lot,” she said. “They’re scrambling to come up with this money.”

Students were given as much notice about the second fee hike as possible, said Cal State spokeswoman Clara Potes-Fellow. The late cuts by the Legislature forced the university to take the action, she said.

Cal State attorneys were aware of the UC court case before the university raised the fees, she said.

“But we’re not making decisions based on a court case with UC,” Potes-Fellow said. “Every case has its nuances.”

The pair of increases — prompted by $584 million in budget cuts — boosted Cal State fees by at least 32 percent. The University of California also implemented new fees for some graduate students.

In the UC case, judges ruled that the university had failed to give some students enough notice when it raised fees in 2003. A state appeals court affirmed the judgment.

From http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_13055768

The Cal State students on Thursday asked a judge for an injunction to temporarily block the increases. That motion is scheduled for a hearing Monday in San Francisco.