My Twitter feed has been buzzing this week with rumors that the University of California Regents may consider a fee hike of as much as 20 percent at their November meeting. No formal announcement of such a proposal has yet been made, but the story does have some meat to it.

As Tess Townsend of the Bay Citizen reports, the 20 percent figure had its origins in a weekend meeting of the University of California Students Association board of directors, where UC Budget Director Patrick Lenz told UCSA that fee hikes on the table in November could “range anywhere from zero to 20 percent.” Asked by Townsend whether he stood by that figure, he said he was “trying to give a very broad picture,” and that he didn’t expect such a hike to be proposed. He did not, however, rule it out.

With mandatory system-wide fees now standing at $10,302 a year, a 20 percent increase would translate into a bump of $2,060. It’s important to recognize, however, that as recently as two years ago, annual fees stood at about $7000 — as a dollar figure, that increase would actually be larger than 32 percent hike that roiled the University a year ago, making it the biggest fee increase in the history of the UC system.

The UC Regents’ November meeting will take place on November 16-18 at UC San Francisco’s Mission Bay campus.