By Marian Wang, ProPublica

At the University of California Santa Cruz, where tuition runs to nearly $35,000 for non-residents, students every year pay more than 30 additional fees — including a small charge for what's billed as "free" HIV testing. Students at Oklahoma State University pay a handsome sum to attend one of the state's flagship schools, but they are also responsible for covering 18 different fees, including a "life safety and security fee."

The $100 "globalization fee" at Howard University is listed — without explanation — in the school's tuition and fees brochure. A school spokeswoman said the fee "supports internationalization initiatives" such as study abroad. Students pay the fee even if they have no intention of studying abroad themselves.

Worcester State University in Massachusetts, however, might have one of the most arresting fees. Students fortunate enough to be admitted face the challenge of paying the required tuition. But before they step foot on campus, they also will be hit with a fee to, well, step foot on campus. A portion of the school's "parking/pedestrian fee" goes to the upkeep of the sidewalks on campus.

Student fees have been something of a known irritant for years, often criticized as a kind of stealth, second tuition imposed on unsuspecting families. But such fees are still on the rise on many campuses. And though their names can border on the comical — i.e., the "student success fee" — there's nothing funny about how they can add up.

"It's a way for colleges to increase the cost that may not be as apparent to as many students," said Mark Kantrowitz, a financial aid expert and the founder of finaid.org and fastweb.org. "You focus in on tuition and when you get the bursar's bill, there are lots of little lines for all these fees, but because each is a relatively small amount, you may not notice it as much. You focus in on the big figure but not on these little figures that collectively add up to a lot."

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[NSFW: Strong language.]

This wasn’t the America the president spoke about in his speech last night. A 400-person election protest at the University of Mississippi featured some rioters yelling racial epithets. One photo on Twitter showed the mob burning an Obama campaign sign, but it’s unclear if that really happened on campus. Word spread on Twitter as the student journalists tweeted a “riot” video. Two were arrested.

Via:

A protest at the University of Mississippi against the re-election of President Barack Obama grew into crowd of about 400 people with shouted racial slurs as rumors of a riot spread on social media. Two people were arrested on minor charges.

The university said in a statement Wednesday that the gathering at the student union began late Tuesday night with about 30 to 40 students, but grew within 20 minutes as word spread. Some students chanted political slogans while others used derogatory racial statements and profanity, the statement said.

The incident comes just after the 50th anniversary of violent rioting that greeted the forced integration of Ole Miss with the enrollment of its first black student, James Meredith.

Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones promised an investigation and said “all of us are ashamed of the few students who have negatively affected the reputations of each of us and of our university.”

As a counter to the protest, about 700 students gathered outside the university administration building on Wednesday evening, holding lit candles and calling for racial harmony.

Thirteen students attending six Cal State University campuses have announced that they will begin a hunger strike on Wednesday, and citing the failure of traditional routes to result in any dialogue to address their concerns about tuition and other issues.

Via:

Members of Students for Quality Education said Friday that the hunger strike will begin Wednesday and involve 13 students at the Dominguez Hills, Fullerton, Long Beach, Northridge, Sacramento and San Bernardino campuses.

In addition to a five-year tuition freeze and administrative pay cuts, students are calling for more free speech rights on campus and the elimination of housing and car allowances for the system’s 23 campus presidents.

Speaking during a telephone news conference, several of the students said they decided on the fast after Chancellor Charles Reed and Board of Trustees Chairman A. Robert Linscheid failed to meet with them or adequately respond to their concerns.

“We’ve tried pretty much everything, and they just ignore us,” said Donnie Bessom, 27, a student at Cal State Long Beach. “We’ve talked to state legislators, written petitions, mobilized people on campus. The next step for us is in the tradition of nonviolent civil disobedience. They keep raising salaries and have those other luxuries, and we thought the symbolic nature of a hunger strike was appropriate to the crisis.”

Since 2008, the public university system has lost nearly $1 billion in state funding, forcing cuts in classes and faculty and denial of entry to thousands of students.

Tuition has increased over the past 6 years, bringing the total cost for undergraduates for the 2012-13 school year to $5,970.

The university also recently announced plans to freeze enrollment for the spring 2013 term part of a cost-cutting strategy to reduce enrollment by 16,000 students next spring.

The decision for the freeze will be part of a proposed tax initiative on the November ballot.

The CSU Board of Trustees also came under fire in March after their salaries were released to the public.

Chancellor Charles Reed earns $421,500 a year, plus housing as well as a $30,000 annual supplement from the CSU Foundation.

During the same meeting last year where trustees voted in the wage increase for presidents, they also increased student tuition by 12 percent.

Presidents' salaries make up about $7 million of the roughly $2 billion Cal State budget.

No doubt you all remember the shocking pepper spray attack on peaceful student protesters at UC Davis last November. Today the report into that incident has been released and the results are damning, accusing the Chancellor of poor leadership and concluding that the use of pepper spray was unjustified and should have been prevented. The laissez-faire attitude of the UC Davis police chief is especially appalling.

CNN:

The report spreads blame for the events that led to the confrontation across several members of the UC-Davis leadership but said Pike was primarily responsible for the "objectively unreasonable decision" to pepper-spray the demonstrators.

"On balance, the evidence does not provide an objective, factual basis for Lt. Pike's purported belief that he was trapped, that any of his officers were trapped, or that the safety of their arrestees was at issue," the report states. "Further, there is little evidence that any protesters attempted to use violence against the police."

But while criticizing Pike, the report also cites "systemic and repeated failures" among campus administrators it said "put officers in the unfortunate situation in which they found themselves."

The type of pepper-spray canister he carried was "not an authorized weapon" under campus police guidelines, and the officers "were not trained in how to use it correctly," according to the report.

Chancellor Linda Katehi told investigators that she envisioned "a limited operation in which police would demand that the tents be taken down but would use no other force," the report found.

However other top-level officials did not receive that message because the chancellor "did not effectively communicate this" during deliberations.

According to the report Chief Spicuzza initially tried to convince officers not to wear riot gear or use batons or pepper spray, but she was unsuccessful.

It also found "There is also evidence that she wanted her officers to withdraw if they encountered resistance," but as investigators weren't allowed to interview her they had no further details.

No one in the campus leadership took responsibility for ensuring they understood the way the police operation was to be handled, the report stated.

"The command and leadership structure of the (campus police) is very dysfunctional," the report adds. "Lieutenants refused to follow directives of the chief."

This conclusion stemmed in part from "heated exchanges" between Spicuzza and those in her charge had regarding how to proceed with the operation and her eventual "concession that her officers will do things their own way and there is nothing she can do about it."[Emphasis mine.] What was this, "mob rule" of the campus police? Spicuzza may as well have given the investigative team their interview and replied with a "Meh" to every question.

The report also takes on the claims by campus police that the video footage of the pepper-spraying incident shows that they were under threat and facing a "hostile crowd." It blasts those claims out of the water with video images of Pike and another officer who "were able to move through the crowd freely" and stepped over seated protesters three times "just minutes before Lt. Pike sprayed those same protesters."

The report contains recommendations to about how to improve communication and the police force, and how to better respect freedom of speech issues as well as various aspects of life on a university campus.

There were no recommendations regarding disciplinary actions.

The full report is available here in pdf format.

Update: See new video and note below.

Watch protesters disrupt UC Regents meeting with mic-checks where tuition hikes were planned to be discussed, per local news report. Students from UC Riverside, protesting today's Board of Regents meeting, were confronted by riot police later in the afternoon, with multiple reports via livestream indicating they were fired upon with rubber bullets and/or other projectiles.

KABC-TV:

Board chair Sherry Lansing told the students she was frustrated by their actions.

"If your sole intention is to disrupt the meeting, you have succeeded," she told the students. "If your intention, which I hope, is to have constructive dialogue ... you are welcome, and we wanted you to stay, but if you continue to chant, we can't do the business. We can't explore any of the options that you're talking about.

Outside the meeting, hundreds surrounded the Highlander Union Building, holding signs, beating drums and chanting.

The students inside the meeting eventually left, and officials say there were two arrests. The meeting resumed after about a 45-minute delay, but what was supposed to be an open meeting was closed to the public.

"We feel it's going good because we shut the meeting down like we wanted to. We want them to listen to us and open some dialogue," said Wesley Porter of the California Teachers Association. "They want to sit in board rooms and closed doors ... that's a problem for us."

UPDATE: NEW VIDEO OF STUDENT-POLICE CLASH:

This video has been posted from the scene at UC Riverside which shows much of the confrontation.
I can see at least two students who were fired upon by riot police, one who had to be carried to safety while other students try to tend to him. It seems likely that it was rubber bullets, but I can't be certain from the video.

Livestream of big protest outside University of California Regents meeting, major conflict. While things remained peaceful in the early afternoon, after the board members were escorted off campus, student amassed to continue their protest and were confronted by riot police – reportedly a mix of campus police and officers from the municipality – and were forced to disperse using projectiles that injured several protesters, according to livestream witnesses.