Photo Illustration by Tessie Navarro / Multimedia Editor

Imagine walking up to the counter to pay for a $12 meal, handing the cashier a piece of paper and walking out paying only a fraction of that price. Now imagine doing that every time you had to pay for something, think of how much more money would be sitting in your bank account that could pay for school, movies, a round of drinks, and more food. Let that dream become a reality.

Cutting coupons is not just for the moms anymore. With higher tuition increases and the pressure of student loans, more students are turning to coupons to save a shiny penny and more places are throwing them at their consumers to get them in the door.

Coupons have been coming out in the spotlight recently and have even become the star of their own television show. The TLC show, “Extreme Couponing,” features people who spend hours on end cutting, downloading and printing, organizing and planning out how to best use their coupons. Though it takes the role of a full-time job, these extreme couponers save thousands of dollars on everyday items. The extreme part comes when the stores end up paying the customer after the effect of hundreds of coupons takes place.

Kinesiology major Jessie Gomez, 21, is one student who turned to coupons after transferring to CSUN this school year. She said she didn’t realize how expensive living on your own can be.

“I love coupons. I especially love grocery coupons, which are usually good deals,” she said. “The two-for-one food deals are so helpful when you’re a broke college student like me.”

Child adolescent development major Michelle Karlinsky said she uses coupons from the newspaper, such as Daily News, to save money on food and at restaurants, which include mainly Black Angus, Denny’s and Target.

“My mom got me involved in using coupons, plus I would looks at the newspaper on Sundays,” Karlinsky said. “I use them whenever I can remember that I have one for a store or a restaurant I’m at.”

Karlinsky’s advice to other college students is, “If you want to save money, then you should start cutting out coupons.”

Newspapers are just one of the many ways students can save a dollar. There are now more ways than ever to save money with the advances of cell phones and technology. Several different applications for download that involve coupons have become popular for phones. It’s become as easy as showing your cell phone to the cashier to save yourself money.

“I absolutely love coupon apps,” said 24-year-old CTVA major Liz Jones. “It’s so much easier to just whip out your phone and flash your discount than having to cut and clip paper coupons.”

One popular site and app for coupons is Groupon, which features deals on almost anything imaginable in any given local area.

“Groupon is a personal favorite of mine,” Jones said.

Another popular app among students is the Yelp application, which has deals just for checking in to places. For example, students can receive a free Kamikaze shot at the Stovepiper Lounge and half off Boba at Bun Me for simply checking into these shops on their mobile devices. Sometimes it’s as easy as showing your CSUN identification card and saving 10 or 15 percent around campus.

Barclays Coffee is just one location among the many which uses these apps to their advantage. Barclays barista Allison McKay said she noticed a rise in customers using the Yelp check-in app to save 10 percent on smoothies over the summer months.

Department of marketing faculty member Deborah Cours said that the new-found popularity of coupons stems from the poor economic times. “In this economic time, people become focused on being frugal and saving money,” she said. It has come to a point where people are proud of saving money, “it’s cool to save money,” she said.

Though the thrill of saving can empower a consumer, Cours cautions care when using coupons. “Only use coupons to buy products you would otherwise buy, things that you would actually use or consume,” she said.

Stores will put out coupons to get the consumer to try new products or switch brands and the consumer will end up buying products they don’t usually need or use. “You end up spending money and not saving money,” she said.

Another tip of advice Cours gives is to check different prices online. Many times another retailer will have a lower price on specific products without involving coupons.

“Sometimes I’ll get coupons for discounted grocery items at Vons, but then I’ll check the Fresh and Easy website and find out that store is selling the same things at a cheaper price,” said 23-year-old communications major Jennalyn Ramirez.

Cours also warns students about the buzz factor with sites such as Groupon. People get excited by sharing with friends and because their deals are prepaid, you end up buying deals and never use it, therefore wasting money.

So the next time you go out for a cup of coffee or pick up some food on your way home, think twice before handing over your money so willingly.

“I’ve certainly wasted a good chunk of money on prepaid deals,” Ramirez said. “Sometimes discounts sound too good to be true that I immediately jump on them before really weighing other options.”

Coupon clipping has become the norm for college students living on a tight budget, and with new ways to receive discounts, students show no sign of ditching the coupon craze.

“Coupons are convenient, resourceful and fun,” Ramirez said. “They’re worth it.”

Midfielder Rene Anguiano (10) and the Matadors came back to rescue a 2-2 draw against Cal State Bakersfield on Thursday night. Photo credit: Ricky Bassman/CSUB Media Relations

The Matadors (2-3-1) gave Cal State Bakersfield (2-0-2) a run for their money on Thursday night as they rallied from two goals down to salvage a 2-2 draw.

With the result, CSUN’s 22-game winning streak over CSUB came to an end. The Matadors now hold a 22-0-1 all-time advantage over the Roadrunners.

Despite the comeback, CSUN head coach Terry Davila was not all that pleased with his team.

“I was disappointed with our flat start,” he said. “We have to settle into our rotations and (the players) have to step up.”

Matador forward Yarden Azulay had two attempts, in the 83rd and 86th minutes respectively. His first shot was saved by Roadrunner goalkeeper Shannon while the other went just wide of the net.

Roadrunner forward Gyasi Zardes, who scored both of the Roadrunners’ goals, had two very close opportunities to win it in the first overtime period. CSUN’s defense, however, was there to make the stops.

Swarming in with two or more defenders, the Matadors were able to contain Zardes from getting the hat-trick.

The Roadrunners’ star forward put his team on the board first in the 26th minute with a power-shot from 25 yards out from the left side of CSUN goalkeeper Michael Abalos’s net. He had two defenders on him, but as soon as he had space, he put his head down and took the shot, which made its way to the right side of Abalos.

Zardes wasn’t done. He came back four minutes later on the left side again and scored with a touch kick into the goal. He was set up by midfielder Kory Kindle.

The Matadors were able to answer back just before halftime. In the 44th minute, midfielder Carlos Benavides pushed the ball upfield and found Thomas Ramos. The two midfielders then shared a few touches before Ramos finally netted the goal from about eight yards away to cut CSUN’s deficit in half.

Throughout the entire match, Davila made numerous substitution. He had five in the first half alone.

CSUN brought its halftime momentum into the second half and tied the game in the 60th minute. A Chris-Smith corner kick found Ramos int the box, and the midfielder got it to forward Brian Behrad, who was five yards away from the CSUB goal and knocked it in.

In the final 20 minutes of regulation, the Roadrunners were close to breaking the tie. CSUB attempted four shots, two of those came from Zardes.

Coming off a nine-foul game against New Mexico, the Matadors managed to collect 20 fouls and a yellow card – given to Azulay -against the Roadrunners.

SMU will be CSUN’s next opponent. They’ll come to Matador Soccer Field on Sept. 23.

CSUN men's soccer loses 2-1 in overtime against No. 2 Akron in the Cal State Northridge Labor Day Classic on Saturday night. Photo Credit: Monique Muniz/ Daily Sundial

For the second time in the Cal State Northridge Labor Day Classic, the Matadors (1-2) rallied to send a match into overtime. Unfortunately for CSUN, the results were the same as Yarden Azulay’s game-tying goal was not enough to defeat No. 2 Akron on Saturday night and the Matadors lost  2-1 on Scott Caldwell’s golden goal.

“We should have won that game,” said Azulay, who scored his first Division-I goal in the 82nd minute of regulation. “We (at least) deserved a tie.”

Caldwell, a midfielder, hit the game-winner off a cross from teammate defender DeAndre Yedlin in the 106th minute.

CSUN head coach Terry Davila had a few heated words with the referees at halftime, complaining about the early yellow cards given to his players.

Fouls were an issue for CSUN, ending the first half with 10 compared to Akron’s five. The Matadors and Zips ended the match with 26 and 9 fouls respectively.

Matador defender Nicholas Hamilton received two early yellow cards in the first half, resulting in a red card and ejection by the 18th minute.

“I thought the red card early was a product from all the comments being made about the refereeing in the game before,” Davila said. “(Akron) got a little favorable treatment. There were fouls, but the red card was harsh.”

Akron opened the score in the 25th minute via forward Darren Mattocks from about 10 yards away from the net, assisted by Caldwell.

Consecutive yellow cards in the second half for Akron defender Bryan Gallego resulted in his ejection, leveling the field once again for one minute after CSUN had scored the tying goal.

The Matadors looked deflated two nights after an 2-1 overtime loss against UNLV, but managed to rally back and contend with only 10 men on the pitch for the majority of the match.

In contrast to Thursday night’s game against Rebels, early on Saturday, the Matadors were not communicating with one another. Following Hamilton’s ejection, however, they reacted.

“Our team has good unity,” CSUN co-captain Joe Franco said. “I don’t know what hit us, but being down to 10 men sparked a light right under us.”

CSUN acquired three yellow cards in the first 13 minutes of the match and finished the game with five.

Scoring opportunities were in favor of the Zips the entire match. Akron had six different players attempt a goal in the first half. They had eight shots with four on goal entering the locker room while CSUN only shot three times with none on goal.

For the game the Matadors’ eight shots and one shot on goal were dwarfed by Akron’s 24 shots and 14 on goal.

“We defended well and it was hard to penetrate our defense,” Davila said. “We had a tough time holding the ball because we had to work so hard to defend. It’s hard to rest on offense when you don’t have enough players against (Akron).”

The Matadors will try to snap a two-game losing streak when they match up against Missouri State at the TLC Plumbing, Heating & Cooling Lobo Invitational in New Mexico on Friday.

CSUN freshman Allan Guei signs his letter of intent to play for the Matadors at an April event at Compton High School. (Photo courtesy of Gazettessports.com

CSUN freshman point guard Allan Guei’s letter-of-intent signing was a huge event back in April at Compton High School. His head coach was there. His classmates were there. Even NBAer, Toronto Raptor DeMar DeRozan, a former Compton standout himself, was there, proud to see him sign.

And as the point guard committed his name onto a piece of paper to play for CSUN for the next four years and everyone cheered, not many imagined Guei’s college-playing career would get a noteworthy bump on the road in as early as a few weeks later.

“The day I was going to sign, (CSUN head coach Bobby Braswell) called me and said we’d probably be ineligible for the postseason,” Guei said.

Though the news of the Matadors’ one-year ban from postseason play due to poor APR scores (grades) weren’t official yet, Guei knew of the possibility. Yet he chose to go ahead and sign anyway. The next month, the NCAA made it official.

“(Braswell) said it wasn’t for sure yet, but I figured … it didn’t really matter. CSUN was the right place for me,” he said.

Guei signed the forms warned. Fellow freshman Stephen Maxwell did not.

Maxwell, a 6-foot-5 small forward from 2011 City-section champion Taft High School, didn’t hear of the sanctions until after he had signed and was attending summer school already. He was eating with teammates when he got the call.

“I was really hurt by it, but I wasn’t going to let it slow me down,” Maxwell said.

Guei, who at 5 feet 9 averaged 13.9 points and 3.7 assists per game in 2010-11, was at lunch at Compton when his high school coach approached him and said to him: “bad news, man.”

“I was like, ‘are you (serious)?’ I wanted to call the coach, but I was like, ‘nah, he already gave me the heads up.’” Guei recalled. “I didn’t want to think about it. I just wanted to get here and focus on what I need to do.”

Though CSUN won’t be able to play beyond its regular-season finale at Cal State Fullerton on Feb. 29, Guei and Maxwell said there’s more to being Matadors than just competing for titles. Maxwell cited academics as well as the opportunity to play close to home as a top reason for signing with CSUN while Guei feels the Matadors are the program that needs him the most and that he’ll get a chance to get considerable playing time right off the bat.

And it helps that the sanction is not projected to go beyond this season, Guei said.

“It’s not like it’s for four years,” he said.

Athletics is doing its part so that doesn’t happen, according to the freshmen. Tutoring, study hall and constant checking on student-athletes’ class punctuality are some of the measures applied to make sure the team complies with NCAA APR guidelines, a sighing Maxwell said.

It seems to be working for him so far. Earlier this month, Maxwell posted on his Twitter account that he earned a 3.0 GPA for the summer.

While the freshmen have accepted the reality of the 2011-12 season and seem to be coping with it just fine, it remains to be seen what emotions the actual season will bring to them. Both are excited for the season opener at USC on Nov. 11 and said they believe that “everything happens for a reason.” However, they are also keeping frustration words – if any – bottled up for now. According to them, no one has even brought up the topic of the banning in the locker room at all.

“At a time, it’s going to really hit us. Like ‘OK, this is our last game and after this we’re just going to have to watch.’” said the candid Guei. “I know I get emotional, and stuff like this might make me emotional … but not for now. Not right now.”

Vinnie McGhee won't be able to play in the postseason in his senior year.

Vinnie McGhee watched from the bench as his new team, Cal State Northridge, was minutes away from pulling the improbable upset over the No. 2 seed, Memphis, in the 2009 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.  His Matadors faltered down the stretch, but the game will forever be remembered as one of the most illustrious games in CSUN March Madness history.

Witnessing the near upset reassured McGhee then that he had made the right choice to transfer to Northridge from Sacramento State after his freshman season.

McGhee couldn’t be on the court with his teammates during the 2008-09 season because he was redshirted, but the 5-foot-10 guard knew he still had three years of eligibility to get back to “the dance.”

CSUN failed to make the NCAA Tournament the next two years, making the 2011-12 season, his senior one, the last opportunity for McGhee to reach that goal. However, that final opportunity was taken away from him in May.

Academics (low grades), among other factors, won’t allow the Matadors to even attempt to repeat the 2009 feat as the NCAA decided to ban them from all postseason play for the upcoming season. CSUN has had continuous sub-par marks in the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rates (APR) report, an account which measures eligibility and retention for Division I student-athletes and is an indicator of graduation rates, and will also lose two scholarships.

The Matadors posted an APR score of 871 for the 2009-10 season, well under the NCAA’s required 925. It was a minimal increase from the 870 score the 2008-09 team recorded.

Since the NCAA started using the APR in 2004-05, Northridge has never come close to the 925 it’s needed. The Matadors highest score came in that inaugural year (885), and the lowest was in 2006-07 (860). Then, the NCAA put CSUN on notice of its shortcomings and followed up with yearly penalties of scholarship takeaways and practice-time reductions.

“When I heard about the ban I was like ‘wow’ and I flashed back to Sac State,” McGhee said.

McGhee, one of two seniors on the roster, thought about leaving CSUN, but, in the end, he didn’t want to go through another transfer.                                                                                                                         “I did want to play in March Madness, but at the end of the day, I’m a Matador and this is my team and my family,” McGhee said. “I (transferred) once and it hurt a lot.”

CSUN head coach Bobby Braswell and his coaching staff spoke with McGhee and senior forward John Hayward-Mayhew first, before addressing the team about the ban, and discussed their options, including transferring.

“I had the (option) to transfer with what went on, but I’ve been here for three years and I saw the team that went to the tournament,” McGhee said. “I’ve been on the team with all the adversity and I just felt like it wouldn’t be in my character to leave the team.

“They (coaches) weren’t sneaky about it and said they would support us if we wanted to transfer. They showed us they cared about us. That really made me feel like I wanted to come back,” he added.

McGhee, who averaged 6.7 points per game and made a team-high 51 3-pointers a year ago, now has new goals for the season.“I’m trying to get a regular season title,” he said.

One of the reasons CSUN has poor graduation rates is that players tend to focus on playing overseas and not on receiving a diploma, CSUN Athletic Director Rick Mazzuto said. That was the case with guard Mark Hill during 2009-10. Hill left school early to turn professional.

McGhee is doing his part academically. He’s only 13 units shy of becoming a CSUN graduate.

Though unofficial until the NCAA releases its next APR scores results, last season’s team had a perfect score of 1,000, Mazzuto said.

“The team is doing better (academically) from when I started,” McGhee said. “The newcomers are buying into it and having some of the best grades on the team.

“We will keep that up. We finished out real strong, one of the top programs in academics. The team that lost to Fullerton (in the first round of the 2010 Big West Tournament) had that stuff (troubles with grades).”

The rest of the team also had a tough time with the ban, but now the goal is to send their senior leader off with a Big West regular-season title.

“I was heartbroken when I found out the news that we weren’t going to compete in postseason,” sophomore guard Aqeel Quinn said. “But we want to finish well for our brother (McGhee) with this being his last year.”

McGhee didn’t really want to leave the team, made up mostly of freshmen and sophomores, without a leader.

“I felt like me staying, I can teach them about how college is going to be like,” McGhee said. “(The sophomores) and all the freshmen are like my little brothers and they look up to me.”

Photo Illustration by: Tessie Navarro / Visual Editor & Mariela Molina / Asst. Visual Editor

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.
Ekin Eser does his best to avoid logging onto his Facebook account but often finds himself typing the web address into his browser without realizing it.

“I know it is a bad thing to go on Facebook a lot,” said Eser, a pre-finance major. “I have to use an extension on my browser to prevent me from going onto Facebook.”

For Eser and many others, Facebook and other social networking websites are a way of relieving stress.

“It’s nice to see words of encouragement from my friends,” said Christopher Alvarado, a finance major. Reactions to posts are what help him relax when he is stressed with homework, he added.

But there comes a point when logging onto these websites change from being about socializing with friends, family and acquaintances and develop into a more serious problem, such as addiction.

Research done by a CSUN psychology professor, Dr. Delinah Hurwitz, suggests that people overuse Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking websites because of an addiction to endorphins released in the body during the process of posting.

People become hooked to this process because endorphins, a chemical produced by the body that acts as a sedative, rushes through that person’s brain and body every time someone responds to their post, Hurwitz said.

The symptoms are almost the same when comparing heavy social networking users to drug addicts. The mutual goal is to release stress.

For drug addicts, a “high” could be taking methamphetamine or heroin. A social networking high would be composing a message on a wall or news feed and waiting for responses.

For the technologically influenced masses today, receiving responses and comments on their Facebook gives a person that fix they need, Hurwitz said.

With the emergence of smart phones, people now bring this problem everywhere they go, causing them to spend countless hours looking at their devices, she added.

Withdrawal symptoms are also another characteristic social media users share with drug addicts.

In order for her to do well during the Summer session, Paola Santiago, a psychology major, had to deactivate her account so that she could focus on her class.

But during that time, she had difficulty staying off her account and decided to reactivate it.

“I have not been as focused during this second half of the (summer) session and I blame Facebook for a lot of that,” Santiago said.

Hurwitz explained that not all social networking users are addicts and that it depends on one’s self-confidence.

She noted that a person with high self-confidence has the ability to limit their usage, but creates only a temporary narcissism with them. However, a person that has lower self-confidence tends to make multiple posts within a day, making their addiction worse.

Consistently indulging wants is not healthy for a person, both mentally and physically, she added.

“People should learn to use social media in moderation,” Hurwitz said.

As a result to this addiction, people may appear to be narcissistic, a form of excessive love with oneself, on their accounts.

The content of a post does not make a person a narcissist, but rather the extent of their addiction to the process, Hurwitz said.

People who spent more time checking Facebook showed signs of being narcissistic, according to a study by York University in Toronto, Canada. However, being narcissistic is not what makes a person spend hours on end on the website.

“Narcissistic posts are typical of social behavior,” said Dr. Mark Sergi, a clinical psychology professor at CSUN. “We all have narcissistic tendencies.”

Sergi explained that a healthy form of narcissism would be when a person’s post is not focused solely on themselves, but also on those around them. The unhealthy form occurs when a person is fixated with themselves, he added.

Human beings have the need to be social with one another and sites such as Facebook and Twitter satisfies those needs, Sergi said.

With new social networking websites emerging, Eser said he is fearful of what kind of side effects new social media will cause.

Thanks: Members of the CSUN men's soccer team thank the cheering fans following their 5-0 victory against CSU Dominguez Hills on Saturday night. Andres Aguila / Staff Photographer

In complete control throughout the match, the CSUN men’s soccer team cruised to a 5-0 exhibition win against CSU Dominguez Hills at Matador Soccer Field on Saturday night.

Despite the match only being an exhibition, the Matador offense looked dominant from beginning to end against the Division-II powerhouse.

All five goals came from different players. Forward Thomas Ramos opened the scoring in the ninth minute, followed by Chris Smith in the 22nd. Forward Brian Behrad then scored the third in the 52nd with a header from the top of the goal box.

“I wanted to get to the ball first by using my speed and, luckily, I got there,” Behrad said.

Substitute players Luis Gutierrez and Christian Gonzalez rounded up the scoring for the night.

The key player for the match was co-captain and defender Joe Franco. Though he did not have any goals to his name, he set up three of the five goals.

“All week we’ve been working on a certain game plan and tactics,” Franco said. “We had a game plan and everyone was firing on all cylinders.”

The Matadors outshot the Toros 13-4 and had an 8-1 advantage on shots on goal.

On the defensive end, the CSUN midfielders and defenders made sure that the team maintained possession of the ball. Goalkeeper Manabu Kaji did not have to worry about the Toros much, only having to save the ball once in 90 minutes. The Matador defense was so powerful that it didn’t allow CSUDH to get its first shot until the 44th minute.

There were a lot of dirty tackles by both sides throughout the night. One of Behrad’s sliding tackles caused his opponent to flip in mid-air.

Each team got a yellow card to its name for the match. Franco was the recipient for CSUN . The play happened in the 86th minute after a poorly-judged tackle on his part.

Overall, the Matadors looked strong even with 12 new people added to the roster this year.

“We have a lot of continuity with the team and it showed,” CSUN head coach Terry Davila said.

The next match will be the season opener against Canisius on Friday.

Goal!: The first of two scores by the Bruins on Friday night. Simon Gambaryan / Contributing Photographer

The CSUN women’s soccer team began the 2011 season with a 2-0 non-conference loss to No. 9 UCLA Bruins on Friday night at Matador Soccer Field.

The Matadors (0-1) challenged the speedy Bruins (1-0) throughout the match and were content with their performance despite the loss.

“We did a great job tonight,” said CSUN goalkeeper Cynthia Jacobo. “We kept up with (UCLA) and played great as a team.”

The Matadors had a chance to get on the scoreboard first, but UCLA goalkeeper Chante’ Sandiford blocked junior forward Melissa Fernandez’s shot early on.

That wasn’t the only chance CSUN had to go ahead. Minutes later, freshman defender Leandra Walker found a rebound opportunity following a corner kick, but her shot went off wide.

In the meantime,  Jacobo anchored CSUN’s defense with two saves to keep the Bruins at bay.

The Bruins made CSUN pay for its misses in the 28th minute, however. Midfielder Caprice Dydasco crossed the ball from the left wing to forward Sydney Leroux, who then shot the ball past Jacobo for the 1-0 lead.

In the second half, it was more missed opportunities for the Matadors, who only managed one shot on goal.  CSUN was off the mark on its shots, had trouble connecting on passes and gave a lot of balls away. However, its defense continued to be strong and blocked three shots in the half, including a clearing of a dangerous bouncing ball in front of the Matador net.

UCLA found a way to once again get the ball into the net, though. Off a corner kick, the ball bounced off the crossbar right to a waiting Rosie White, who headed the ball into the back of the net for the 2-0 lead.

“They are a great team,” CSUN head coach Keith West said of the Bruins.

CSUN had two more opportunities to score its first goal of the season late in the game, but the Bruins’ swarming defense held up.

UCLA out shot the Matadors 20-6 and had seven shots on goal to the Matadors’ one.

Fernandez led the Matadors with three shots while Walker had the only shot on goal.

Jacobo recorded four saves, bringing her career total to 120, fifth-most in school history.

CSUN wasn’t discouraged by the result. Jacobo, in particular, was impressed with the team’s ability to stand its ground against a team of the Bruins’ caliber.

“If we can keep up with (UCLA), we can keep up with anyone,” Jacobo said.

West took things a bit more calmly.

“There are a lot of positives to take away from this game,” he said. “But we still need to clean up a few things.”

The Matadors will have the opportunity to even up their record when they visit Baylor next Friday. Two days later, they’ll be at Texas.

————————————-

Other Big West teams in non-conference action:  

Long Beach State 2 – USC 1

Pacific 3 – Nevada 0

UC Irvine 2 – UTSA 1

Cal Poly 2 – Cincinnati 1

Cal State Fullerton 0 – Utah 0

UC Davis 2 – USF 0

UCSB 1 – Idaho 1

UC Riverside 0 – UNLV 3

The cost for attending CSUN skyrocketed from $3,350 in 2007 to $4,801 in 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Costs are continuing to go up.

CSU Board of Trustees approved a 10 percent increase in tuition for Fall 2011, addressing the $500 million cut approved by state legislators in March.

The most recent blow to the CSU came in June when a state budget was adopted and Gov. Jerry Brown signed, reducing state funding by an additional $150 million.

James Ballard, CSUN professor and California Faculty Association member, expressed disappointment with the budget.

“People in the legislature are not allowing students dreams to come to fruition,” Ballard said. “That’s what’s really killing our economy.”

CSU Board of Trustees met on July 12, voting to increase tuition 12 percent to account for the latest reduction, bringing tuition totals for fall to $5,472.

Students with financial aid were likely fully covered from the tuition hike. One-third of the revenue coming from the tuition increase was allocated to financial aid, according to the CSU Budget Central Blog.

Students who do did count on financial aid saw a total increase of $516 in tuition for fall, including the $222 increase approved in March and the $294 increase approved in July.

There was no other feasible option but the tuition hikes, according to Erik Fallis, CSU media relations specialist.

“We’re really at a point where cutting any deeper within the institution is going to cause lasting damage,” said Fallis.

Still, CSUN remains one of the most affordable public universities in the country, with tuition well below the national average, which is currently $6,397.

CSUN Provost Harry Hellenbrand does not see tuition staying below average for long though.

“We’re catching up with the rest of the country,” Hellenbrand said. “We’ll be at the national average in two to three years.”

One reason for the constant cutting from the CSU is there is no provision that protects post-secondary institutions from funding reductions by the state.

“[State legislators are] solving a short-term problem and causing a long-term, bigger problem,” said Hellenbrand.

Another concern that could impact CSUN students negatively is a possible “trigger” cut that would reduce funding another $100 million if state revenues over the next few months do not match estimated projections, set at $4 billion.

“The challenge of this potential additional $100 million is if we don’t have advanced warning,” said Fallis.

For first-time freshmen, graduating within four years could prove even more difficult, with only about 10 percent at CSUN accomplishing this now, according to the Institute of Education Sciences.

“They’re going to have long term problems graduating,” Ballard said. “They think they’re going to graduate in four years; it’s going to take them six.”

Data gathered from Institutional Research

CSUN head coach Bobby Braswell (left) and his players have been banned from postseaon play next season. Photo Credit: Sundial File Photo.

Times sure have changed for the men’s basketball team since their admirable 2009 trip to the NCAA Tournament. And it’s all due to something a member of that last championship team says has changed little: grades.

“That’s been a problem for a while,” said Rob Haynes, a senior on the 2009 Big West Tournament champion squad.

Low-grade problems, among other factors, won’t allow the Matadors to even attempt to repeat the 2009 feat as the NCAA decided on Tuesday to ban them from all postseason play due to their continuous low marks in the entity’s Academic Progress Rates (APR) report, an account which measures eligibility and retention for Division I student-athletes and is an indicator of graduation rates. The Matadors will also lose two scholarships for the upcoming year.

“There’s a national standard we have to meet academically and we are in the process of doing that.  We will serve this penalty for the 2011-12 year,” CSUN Athletic Director Rick Mazzuto said.

The Matadors posted an APR score of 871 for the 2009-10 season, well under the NCAA’s required 925. It was a minimal increase from the 870 score the 2008-09 team recorded and which also led to the loss of two scholarships and reduced practice time.

Since the NCAA started using the APR in 2004-05, Northridge has never come close to the 925 it’s needed. The Matadors highest score came in that inaugural year (885), and the lowest was in 2006-07 (860). Then, the NCAA put CSUN on notice of its shortcomings and followed up with yearly penalties of scholarship takeaways and practice-time reductions.

From the 18 sports at Northridge, only the men’s basketball team failed to reach the required 925 score. Men and women’s cross country were the only teams to register a perfect 1,000 score for the 2009-10 season.

When asked about the men’s basketball team academic struggles in comparison to the rest of sports, Mazzuto said: “a few student-athletes think their future is in professional basketball and not finishing up their academic careers here (at CSUN), and not being academically-committed after the conclusion of the basketball season.”

2009-10 starting point guard Mark Hill could fit that bill. According to a Daily News report, Hill left the school to turn professional. He and another player who accepted a scholarship but never played and left the school counted against the APR rate.

As the Matadors prepare to miss their first Big West Conference Tournament for the first time in their history, they’ll do so with longtime head coach Bobby Braswell at the helm, Mazzuto said.

“(Braswell) will definitely be our coach next year,” Mazzuto said. “He’s a veteran coach and he understands what needs to get done. He is in the process of accomplishing goals we set out.”

Haynes, who played internationally after he finished school, echoed the sentiment.

“I definitely wouldn’t blame Braswell … He was always on us about grades and study hall. Some players listened and some didn’t,” he said.

2010-11 leading scorer and senior, Lenny Daniel, who was academically ineligible for the Big West Tournament in 2010, said the team – which according to Mazzuto had a 1,000 APR score for the Fall 2010 -  is making improvements in grades, but feels for the current players who have to pay for past players’ missteps.

“It was created before our time here and the young guys have to suffer,” said Daniel about the current team, which had eight freshmen this past season. “The team and the university are taken the necessary steps to improve the academic process. This is a learning experience that will make them stronger and they have my full support.”