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The California State University system’s Board of Trustee’s yesterday voted in favor of two student fee increases. This is only the latest increase of many over the last few years, despite strong student and faculty opposition. Fees will be raised 5% beginning in the Spring semester and a 10% increase will take effect for the 2011-2012 school year. The total increase of 15% means the 2011-2012 year will cost each full-time student $4,884, and many students fear they will not be able to afford it. Looking to California’s other university system, UC President Mark Yudof, whose 2009 salary was nearly $600,000, announced he will recommend an undergraduate student fee increase of 8% for the next academic year. Yudof published an open letter to Californians through the Huntington Post earlier this week asking for understanding and cooperation with the proposed fee increases and his proposal to cut pension benefits for employees. Protests are planned to occur at the UC Regents meeting in San Francisco. Unfortunately California is not the only state in the nation facing a crisis on its college campuses, and the crisis is not only confined to shrinking budgets. Author and Professor of History Ellen Schracker delves into the less visible problems facing American universities in her new book, “The Lost Soul of Higher Education: Corporatization, the Assault on Academic Freedom, and the End of the American University”.

GUEST: Ellen Schrecker is a Professor of American history at Yeshiva University, she is active in the American Association of University Professors and is best known for her book Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. Her latest book is The Lost Soul of Higher Education: Corporatization, the Assault on Academic Freedom, and the End of the American University

Find out more about Schrecker’s book here: http://www.thenewpress.com/index.php?option=com_title&task=view_title&metaproductid=1739