Annual cost of attending University of California could drop for first time in 20 years

UC Santa Cruz student Katherine Wethington holds a white board to display a message at a meeting of the UC Board of Regents in San Francisco, Calif. on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2018 where a tuition increase is being considered. less UC Santa Cruz student Katherine Wethington holds a white board to display a message at a meeting of the UC Board of Regents in San Francisco, Calif. on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2018 where a tuition increase is being ... more Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Annual cost of attending University of California could drop for first time in 20 years 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

The price of a year at the University of California will go down — slightly — this fall for the first time in two decades, with the expiration of a temporary $60 legal fee.

Tuition and systemwide fees will drop to $12,570 from the current $12,630 if the UC regents approve their 2018-19 budget as expected on Thursday in San Francisco.

UC has charged students an additional $60 a year since 2007 to recoup tuition refunds it was required to provide in 2006 and 2010 after students filed two lawsuits accusing the regents of double billing them and of breaching a contract promising that graduate student fees would remain stable. Altogether, about 40,000 students got money back. But students in later years would pay for it.

The fee, which sunsets this year, has let UC recoup about $91 million in all. Records show that the last time UC’s price tag fell for California undergraduates was 20 years ago, when the regents lowered tuition by 5 percent in 1998, to $3,609, and by another 5 percent in 1999, to $3,429. With increases in campus fees, however, each year’s decrease was less than that.

This year, the $60 price drop could be erased by rising campus fees, which individual campuses charge on top of the systemwide fees. On average, campus fees have grown by $55 a year for the past decade, from $711 to $1,257 last year.

Perhaps more beneficial to student pocketbooks was the cancellation of a proposed $342 increase in tuition and systemwide fees that would have pushed the price of UC above $14,000 a year for the first time for California undergraduates. Instead, the state Legislature agreed in June to buy out the increase and kick in more money for enrollment growth.

On Thursday, the regents are expected to approve a budget that includes $3.7 billion from the state general fund. That represents $98 million above last year’s allocation, a 2.7 percent increase. It includes $5 million to pay for 500 additional California undergraduates. UC will dig into its coffers and pay for another 1,500 in-state undergraduates, according to the budget proposal.

The proposal also details a long list of other expenditures UC expects to make in the coming year, including:

• $35 million for seismic safety and lapsed maintenance of aging buildings.

• $25 million to help UC Berkeley address its operating deficit.

• $15 million for UC Riverside’s medical school to increase distance medicine and distance psychiatry for underserved rural areas.

• $12 million for UC Davis research into Jordan’s Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder named for the daughter of Sacramento lobbyist Joe Lang.

• $1.2 million for a two-year anti-bias program at UC and California State University campuses.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov