The University of California Board of Regents on Thursday bit the bullet and approved a 32 percent increase in tuition that will see a two-phase, $2,500 price hike that will put the public system's undergraduate education costs at more than 10,000 a year and triple tuition and fees for UCLA students compared to ten years ago.

Protests are happening at UCLA, where a group of students has taken over Campbell Hall. But the regents were stuck with a $535 million deficit that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't about to help with.

In fact the UC system and the Governator made a deal in 2004 that would restore funding to the system after a series of cuts in the mid-'00s. (A UC press release trumpeting the deal states, “Fee increases will be predictable so that students and their families can plan ahead.” Yeah, plan for community college).

UCLA police arrested 14 protesters yesterday; one was arrested so far today.

A statement from the Campbell Hall protesters reads: “We know the crisis is systemic, and that it reaches beyond the regents, beyond the criminal budget cuts in Sacramento, beyond the economic crisis, to the very foundations of our society. But we also know that the

enormity of the problem is just as often an excuse for doing nothing.”

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