A Superior Court judge has ordered the University of California to pay nearly 3,000 current and former professional school students $28 million after the students claimed the school raised fees despite promises to the contrary, according to a news story in the Daily Californian, the student newspaper published at the University of California, Berkeley.
The ruling includes students enrolled in the schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing, law, and business.
The suit, which was filed in 2005, alleged that the university promised the students a tuition freeze when they enrolled, then increased their professional school fees by thousands of dollars to make up for lost state funding.
"The university never made any promise to these students that their fees would remain constant while they were enrolled in their professional programs," university spokesperson Leslie Sepuka told the Daily Californian in an e-mail. "By the time these students enrolled in 2003-04, it was very clear that the policy stating fees would remain constant was no longer in effect. It was removed because the funding level could no longer support the fee ceiling."
University officials are considering an appeal.
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