And a few said they wouldn't mind paying the extra money for the 2011-12 academic school year — if the services remained the same. But as it is, they said, some class offerings are becoming more infrequent, if not non-existent, and there some services that they have come to depend on have all but been eliminated.
"I wouldn't mind paying the extra money if I was able to get all the classes I wanted, but as it is, I'm going to graduate $55,000 in debt, and I might not get the major I want," said Deborah Tharp, a fourth-year pre-med student.
Tharp, who hopes to major in psychology, said she has a learning disability and that in the past she received help from the tutors at the Learning and Resources Academic Center. But some of those tutors have lost their jobs due to the financial hardships playing out across UCI and the rest of the UC system.
"This isn't just a UCI problem," said Tharp, 37, a senior and a mother of three. Incidentally, she also ran for the 70th State Assembly seat, garnering 4% of the vote as a Libertarian in a three-way race.
"I ran for office because of the tuition increase," she said. "I was able to organize students on campus and get thousands of votes. This is a statewide and system-wide problem, and it doesn't look like it's going to get any better."
The hike was seen as a partial system-wide solution to plug a hole in the $1.3-billion deficit in the UC system's operating budget due to state cutbacks, said Jesse Cheng, a senior at UC Irvine who serves as the lone UC student regent statewide.
On Friday, Cheng, in an exclusive interview, elaborated on the vote he cast in San Francisco after a long day of traveling back and forth from the Bay Area to Irvine.
