Cal Day activity can't drown out budget questions

Michael Macor / The Chronicle

Student Jose Vilchez wears a sign (and little else) to express his anger over budget cuts to the university system as he walks through Sproul Plaza.





Cal Day activity can't drown out budget questions:


Michael Jedlicka, a board member of the Cal Parents committee, answered more financial questions than usual from his booth at Saturday's Cal Day - UC Berkeley's annual open house that attracted 40,000 prospective students and their parents.

While most of the high school seniors already have been accepted for admission to Berkeley, many also have acceptances from other colleges and must make a decision on where to enroll by May 1.

The university made its best effort to close the deal. On a sunny day, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau addressed 5,000 incoming students, lab doors swung open to the public - you could take a look at a stem cell or start your own earthquake in the seismology lab - and the Cal marching band trumpeted and drummed their way through campus.

Yet in the wake of steep budget cuts and Gov. Jerry Brown's recent announcement that UC tuition could double to $20,000 in the 2012-13 academic year, Jedlicka said, many visiting parents wanted to know how it would impact their child's college experience - and their own checkbook.

"As a father of two students who go to Cal, I understood their concerns, and I can honestly say the financial issues haven't impacted the world-class education they're getting in the classroom," Jedlicka said. "You can get them to graduate in four years if you do it right. And it's still a great deal."

Since this was the Berkeley campus, about 20 yards away a group of students had assembled to offer a dissenting opinion.

Not far from Jedlicka's booth, Jose Vilchez, 21, and Jesse Yeh, 20, both political economy majors, worried that the promise of a great deal was about to vanish. They said budget cuts had made it more difficult get classes of their choosing and it was a longshot to graduate on time.

Vilchez and Yeh stood in shorts and slippers and wore cardboard signs over their bare chests. Vilchez's sign read, "I'd rather lose my clothes than my education."

The students used Cal Day to encourage prospective students and their parents to call the governor's office to convey their opposition to any future tuition hikes.

"The hook has always been it's a great university at an affordable price," Vilchez said. "But it may not continue to be affordable."

"Cutting higher education may fix the budget problems in the short run," Yeh added, "but in the long run, fewer educated people only creates bigger budget problems."

Maddie Nguyen, an 18-year-old from Houston, who watched as the shirtless students handed out fliers, said she'd been accepted at the University of Texas, but was also considering Berkeley.

Nguyen said the possible tuition increases were a concern, but wouldn't stop her from coming to California.

"The out-of-state fees are already outrageous," she said, "but what am I going to do? Not go to college? You should go where you want to go and worry about paying it back later."


San Fransisco Chronicle
Sunday, April 17, 2011