The University of California Board of Regents on Wednesday approved a 5% annual tuition increase for new undergraduates starting in 2026, despite protests across all nine campuses.
The plan locks in tuition for incoming students for up to six years. The hike has drawn strong opposition, with students citing affordability concerns and cuts to financial aid.
UC leaders claimed the increase is needed to address enrollment growth and offset federal and state funding cuts.
“Tuition increases are never welcome, but moderate and predictable increases are necessary to sustain the quality of education that our students deserve,” UC President James B. Milliken said, adding that the new higher price structure is necessary in the face of “serious and compounding financial pressures” as well as “historic uncertainty” across higher education today.
At their meeting at UCLA, the regents approved updates to the Tuition Stability Plan, which first took effect in 2022, and agreed to review it again in seven years. Known as “cohort tuition” because increases apply to one class of students at a time, the revised plan is expected to generate $273 million for UC in its first year.
The plan caps inflation-based tuition increases at 5% annually and locks in that rate for each incoming class for the duration of their studies. It also reduces by 5% the share of tuition revenue set aside for financial aid.
The university system has been in the middle of a nasty fight between the Trump administration and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA).
Trump has pressured UC to pay the federal government $1.2 billion. Newsom has called on the university to not pay, demanding last month that it “do the right thing.” He also threatened to pull state funding from schools that bent to the Trump administration’s demands for money, stating that California will “not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers and surrender academic freedom.”
Although a federal judge has temporarily halted Trump from pressuring UC to pay the federal government $1.2 billion, Milliken said the threat remains.
Across the system, more than $230 million in research activity remained suspended or terminated, even after the courts ordered more than 1,600 restored, he said.
The university system also had to lay off 800 employees in 2025 and has seen a $500 million jump in operating costs, Milliken said.
UC has also sued the Trump administration for changing a formula for how much campuses receive in grant funding to maintain labs.
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Tommy Contreras, the undergraduate student government’s internal vice president at UCLA, told reporters that “historically, the UC has prided itself on being an engine for socioeconomic mobility, and this tuition increase goes directly against that mission.”
“I think I speak on behalf of the student body when we say we vehemently oppose this raise in tuition,” he added.
