UC Davis, Santa Cruz and Berkeley have all been having student walkouts where students skip class and march through the streets in protest of UC tuition increasing.

Janet Napolitano, former Arizona governor and Homeland Security Chief, who is now president of the UC system, proposed to raise student fees up to 5 percent each year for the next four years. The idea is to bring stability to UCs. However, if the state of California comes up with $100 million for the schools then students will see no change in their tuition for 2015.

Toni Atkins, a San Diego Democrat and State Assembly Speaker who serves on the governing boards of UCs and CSUs, proffered to drop the increase in the fees and to look for the money elsewhere.

“It’s very clear two things are true, funding for UC absolutely has to increase and more fee increases are the wrong way to do it,” Atkins said in a recent U-T San Diego article.

She also suggests to increase tuition for out-of-state students by $5,000 and to cap enrollment of out-of-state students as it is right now, contradicting Napolitano who wants to increase it by 2,000 within five years. Currently non-California residents pay more than $35,000 in UC fees and student leaders are said to have mixed emotions about a proposed increase in their already high costs.

Napolitano’s proposal would mean that $612 would be added to the cost of tuition for a UC school, which would take $12,804 for in-state students. By 2019, tuition would be $15, 564 if the proposal continues.

According to the MercuryNews.com, Napolitano said, “State funding should be adequate to ensure that UC remains the best public university in the world and that tuition is as low and predictable as possible.”

The LA times reported that Senate leader Kevin de Leon wrote Napolitano, “California’s university system is one of the premier higher education systems in the world and we should require that nonresident students pay a premium to attend it. The revenue generated from these fees can be used to increase affordability and access for more Californians.”

Along with proposing an increase for out of state students, de Leon also says that UCs should become “aggressive” in getting disadvantaged Californians rather than focusing time on wealthy out-of-state students whom they are depending on to survive.

UC tuition since 2001 has tripled in cost, and the increase in 2015 will be the first in the last three years.

Gov. Jerry Brown does not stand behind Napolitano as he voted against the hike in cost and would rather create a task force to advise ways to ensure that the UC budget is being stretched by educating more students in less time. According to Brown, the UC systems budget is 27 percent more than it was when he took office initially in 2011, which brings it to about $7 billion.

Students are taking a stand across the state and are firmly expressing their protest in tuition increase.

Ashley Yoell, a UC Davis student expressed her opinion and said, “Everyone needs to stop getting degrees. It’s the only way to fix the problem. Thousands of dollars of debt for a shitty job after college. Colleges/universities are just businesses spitting out mediocre educations and investing in themselves. So sad.”