In the spirit of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “year of education” taking place next year, a group in California is making sure that education, more specifically the cost of it, is made a priority in 2008.

Students and Families for Tuition Relief Now is a statewide effort to put a freeze on tuition fee increases experienced by students within the California State University and University of California systems.

The group, which filed the state’s first student-led ballot initiative on Nov. 14, said on its website that its goal is “to ensure that every student can afford college.”

In order to have the initiative placed on the November 2008 ballot, 433,971 signatures need to be collected between January and mid-April, said Valeria Fike-Rosales, lead campaign organizer.

Fike-Rosales said increased fees are pushing students out of the higher education system because they simply can’t afford it.

“I think the issue really resonates with students, with parents, with community members, everyone,” she said. “The necessity of higher education keeps growing and growing and it’s more important that we have an educated workforce so that our economy continues to boom.”

If placed on the ballot and passed by voters, the law will keep tuition costs for resident undergraduate students at their current rate for five years. Once that time period has passed, tuition increases will only be allowed to increase at the same rate of the state’s inflation level.

Additionally, the law will require that millionaires with an income of more than $1 million will be taxed one percent, with the money going to cover to cost of CSU and UC education. Administrators will then be held accountable for how the money is spent.

The CSU system rationalized tuition increases for students by saying that it’s still less than comparable universities throughout the nation.

“The students of the CSU pay the lowest fees of any public university in the U.S.,” said Clara Potes-Fellow, spokeswoman for the chancellor’s office. “The average fee that students…pay is $7,500 and CSU students, on average, pay $3,500.”

Students said that argument doesn’t take into consideration other factors, such as the cost of living and the prolonging of education for students who have to work while attending school.

Leo Cari, graduating senior majoring in film studies and English, said he thinks the CSU system has been overcharging students and the ballot initiative is a good thing.

“I think that the constant tuition increases are ridiculous,” he said. “I’ve tried to not pay attention to how much it costs and how much the increases have been over the years, but now that I’m about to graduate, I have been looking at my student loans and I am absolutely dreading their repayment.”

Currently at Sacramento State, undergraduates pay $1,114 a semester for up to six units, and $1,642 for seven or more units. Credential and graduate students pay slightly higher fees, and non-residents pay $339 extra per unit.

Fike-Rosales said the amount of money students have to pay, both during and after their college education, needs to be changed.

“Students continuously having to take the brunt of that lack of funding…is unfair,” she said. “They can’t afford to be the ATM to the university anymore and it’s time for something to change.”

According to the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California website, the initiative process is unique to 24 states, including California, because it allows residents to collect signatures about issues they want to see on the ballot. If the required amount of signatures is obtained in a certain amount of time, the proposition is put on the ballot for the pending election.

Natalye Childress Smith can be reached at [email protected].