Yesterday, the California State University Board of Trustees approved a $276 fee increase—a 10 percent increase for the 2008-09 academic year for full-time undergraduate students.

Yet another fee increase.

It’s more than apparent that our fees will keep increasing. Even if the economy bounces back, the CSU governing board won’t reverse off the course we are currently on. There’s no fee rebate coming from our Board of Trustees. Start saving now, as the fees will probably go up again.

And so the vicious cycle continues: when a budget crisis looms, make the students pay for it.

The CSU public affairs office estimates that this will generate $110 million for the CSU system. But at what cost?

Is our education really worth an extra 10 percent in fees? Factor in how, even with the fee increase, departments all over the campus will be cutting classes, which will make it harder to graduate.

That’s what this 10 percent will buy you: the opportunity to pay the next fee increase because you couldn’t get all the classes you needed to graduate.

Fantastic.

While the powers that be don’t have some evil plan to keep students from graduating (maybe), they are not taking into account the other financial constraints that students have.

The people who make the decision about our fees aren’t paying rent or buying books or working two jobs to survive.

Sure, they can vote for a fee increase and say that they feel for hardships the students face, but in reality they have no idea what it’s like.

Raising our fees again is a mistake. It will only hurt the students and turn potential students away because they could not afford to pay the fees.