Budget calls for 11 percent tuition increase
Reasons include faculty salary raise
By Jeffrey Tylicki
Staff Writer
The administration released Thursday the proposed university budget for the 1983-84 school year, a balanced budget totaling over S309 million and asking for an 11 percent tuition increase.
In a statement accompanying the budget, university President James Zumberge justified the 11 percent hike in tuition by citing three major factors: inflation, additional operating expenses and a much-needed increase in faculty salaries.
The jump in tuition will send the 12 to 18 unit flat cost from $7,000 to $7,700 and will increase the per unit rate from $237 to $263. These figures do not include professional schools that have separate tuitions costs. These schools, such as dentistry and medicine, will release their recommendations within the next few weeks.
The student health fee is scheduled to increase 17.1 percent from Sill to $130. However, the elimination of the $13 student services fee along with an unchanged student government fee of $28 drops mandatory fee costs 4.2 percent. This adds up to a total net increase in tuition and fees of 10.6 percent, from $7,165 to $7,928 annually.
The proposed budget is scheduled to be reviewed next week by the university's budget advisory committee and will be presented to the Board of Trustees for approval at its May 1 retreat in Pebble Beach.
John Curry, director of the
university budget, defended the high tuition increase, which is 5 percent above the rate of inflation, by stating that a college education is not like other capital investments that one makes.
"Your college education is a major investment that carries you through the rest of your life,'' Curry asserted. "It is not valid to compare educational prices with other prices in the ecomomy (because of the involved services at a university)."
In order to make up for the tuition hike, the budget for uni-versitv-sponsored financial aid will also increase by 11 percent. The budget report stressed the university's commitment to its full-need financial aid policy implemented last year.
A 6 percent increase in the faculty salary pool was noted as one of the main budgetary considerations. Zumberge said this was needed in order for the university to remain competitive with "the best" universities for academic talent.
"Although faculty and staff salaries at USC are competitive with those at top colleges and universities in the country, academic salaries as a whole have fallen behind inflation during recent years," the budget office noted.
The 6 percent increase should recoup these losses over the years, it said, because current inflation in the Los Angeles area is only running between 1 and 2 percent.
The construction of many new university buildings — primarily the new Cancer Center, the McDonald's
Olympic Swimming Pool and the new campus parking structure — is the explanation for an almost 19 percent budgeted increase in utilities costs.
Also taken into account are the buildings scheduled for renovation, including the Armory storage building off campus, the school of accounting building and the school of dentistry.
A 13.5 percent increase has been allotted for equipment for the deteriorating library system, a concern of many students, faculty and administrators that was brought to the forefront this year by the student senate. The report noted a continued implementation of the library's automation system, real increases (beyond in-
By Mark Lowe
Staff Writer
Worries over whether students will not receive federal financial aid because they cannot prove they registered for the draft ended this week when the university announced it will not ask applicants for that information.
By order of the U.S. Department of Education, the university is postponing its plans to collect signatures from students applying for financial aid for certification that they have registered with Selective Service for a possible draft.
The education department decision was the result of an injunction issued against the law by Donald Alsop, Minnesota District Court judge, on March 9, pending his ruling in a suit challenging the lawr's constitutionality.
The order also represented the department's final response to charges from financial aid offices across the country that the job of collecting signatures and verifying students' registration was a huge administrative bur-
den schools could not easily handle.
Previously, the department decided to delay implementing the regulations until the 1985-86 academic year. The new order, though, postpones enforcement of the law indefinitely.
"The Department of Education has chosen (that order) because there were tremendous concerns about the timing (of the regulation) and the validation process," said Fred Hessinger, director of financial aid. "So now we are on hold until the legality is determined."
Hessinger added that the department's decision means students applying for financial aid at this university for the
flation) in the book and periodicals collection, the addition of service personnel, an extensive study into the future of the library and plans to renovate Doheny.
The unrestricted budget package totals $309,463,000, and as stated by Zumberge it is balanced. $7 million of these funds are additional to the current year's budget figures even after inflation and are intended for "quality gains."
"Universities are dynamic institutions, however, and staying even is not enough," Zumberge said. "The opportunity for quality gains in 1983-84 (with the $7 million increase) is unprecedented in recent USC history."
The budget office report said
1983-84 academic year will not have to certify they have registered.
"It will not be implemented here and it will not be implemented anywhere in the nation," he said, "and all indications are that it will be declared unconstitutional."
He said the university's regular procedures for applying for
financial aid will remain in effect for the coming school year.
Controversy over federal financial aid began last September when President Reagan signed a law prohibiting all men between 18 and 24 from receiving such aid if they could not prove they had registered for the draft.
Universities nationwide immediately attacked the law, since it left them with the task of collecting Selective Service
data on applicants and verifying their registration.
"The verification could delay student awards and could be a costly, time-consuming process," Hessinger said, adding that financial aid offices also believed it was unfair for them to be enforcing Selective Service laws.
Implementation of the law was further delayed by a lawsuit brought on by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of six Minnesota college students. They claimed the law both violated constitutional protection against self-incrimination and punished men for not registering before they had
the most dramatic increases will be in the budgets of the college of letters, arts and sciences, the school of business administration and the school of engineering. These will mostly be in the form of enhancing current faculty positions and new appointments.
Students and faculty are told in the report that key gains in administrative services would also be seen. This included emphasis on the degree check system, the beginning of a plan to increase the quality and access of the university computing system, the start of a greenspace project where the mailing services building is now located and the first "serious" look into the deferred maintenance backlog.
been found guilty in court of not complying.
Alsop then issued his injunction against the law pending his decision in the case, while stating that the students will "probably prove their case," Hessinger said.
"The big question then was, does this apply to the state of Minnesota or the nation?" he
said. "The financial aid offices said it was nationwide."
The Department of Education denied the injunction applied to all states, but then told financial aid offices they would not have to verify registration but only have students sign a form saying they had registered.
"Over the last two weeks, we have come to the point where the Department of Education has said we won't even collect signatures," Hessinger said.
"This has been an amazingly rapid series of events," he added. "Everything has just rushed through."
Hessinger said the university was caught by surprise at the quick sequence of events leading up to the suspension of the law. He added this actually proved beneficial because the university was cleared of the task of having to prepare and print the appropriate forms.
"We were going to use a process of a separate signature on a separate document that would have to be signed prior to the release of any financial aid dollars," he said, "but luckily we haven't spent a great deal of time or money on it."
He added other schools were not so fortunate, since thev decided to include the registration section on their financial aid applications, meaning they spent money ordering now-obsolete forms.
Book on state policy analyzes problems
By Sheldon Ito
Staff Writer
f
The university's school of public administration will publish an annual volume beginning next spring that will analyze current problems in California and attempt to present and evaluate alternative strategies to deal with them.
The book-Iength volume, entitled "California Policy Choices," will contain chapters written by leading public policy' experts on such issues as raising state revenues, improving elementary and secondary education and state water policy, said Donald Winkler, associate professor of public administration. Winkler will coedit the publication along with John Kirlin, professor of public administration at the university’s Sacramento Public Affairs Center.
"The publication will draw from the community of public policy researchers in the state of California," Winkler said. They will analyze current problems, present alternative solutions and in some cases make recommendations to state policy makers, he added.
He cited as an example the issue of "raising state revenues." In this case, proposals such as increasing the excise tax on tobacco and alcohol, raising sales taxes and imposing a new oil severance tax will be explored. The analyses of these proposals will then be presented to the state public policy makers.
The emphasis of the publication will be on developing new policies and strategies, as well as analyzing old ones. Winkler said.
One example of the new policies being developed is what Kirlin called "less intrusive regulations."
Winkler said the use of such policies is the difference between "regulation and forcing."
For example, instead of the state mandating a company to clean up a river it has polluted, it may use a tax-break as incentive for the company to keep the river clean, he said.
Kirlin said the study of alternative policies is lacking in this state and that this new publication will help fulfill that need.
"This type of analysis is currently missing in California," Kirlin said. "Existing institutions are too captured by present budget categories, on-going programs and short term horizons to systematically search for the innovations so essential to the future of this state."
Winkler and Kirlin will consult an advisor)' board to determine which issues need to be studied most.
The advisory board includes Wayne Bartlett of Merrill Lynch WTute Weld, Michael Franchetti, director of finance for the state of California, William Hamm, legislative analyst for the state,
(Continued on page 3)
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Volume XCIII, Number 64	University of Southern California	Friday, April 22, 1983
Proof of draft registration not required for student aid
'...all indications are that it will be declared unconstitutional.' — Fred Hessinger.
'It (verifying financial aid) will not be implemented here and it will not be implemented anywhere in the nation.' — Fred Hessinger, director of financial aid.