UC to consider plan to hike tuition over 5 years

University of California President Janet Napolitano says tuition at the system’s 10 campuses may go up by as much as 5 percent next year – and in each of the four years after that.

Napolitano says she is proposing the increases to the university’s governing board on Thursday to fulfill a goal she set when she became UC president last year of making tuition hikes a predictable part of the university’s budget so both families and campuses will know what to expect.

Under the proposal, the average annual cost of a UC education for California residents would increase to $12,804 next fall and grow to $15,564 in the fall of 2019. Tuition has been frozen for the last three years.

Napolitano says the hikes could be reduced if the university gets more money from the state than it is expecting.