LOS ANGELES – Moms and dads everywhere who are scrimping and saving to send their children to college will be interested in a new exposé that finds leaders at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) living large at the school’s expense.

According to an analysis by The Center for Investigative Reporting, academic leaders at one UCLA campus have spent lavishly on chauffeured cars, meals, stays at the ritzy Four Season hotel, and various “entertainment” expenses over the past five years.

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“Overall …  (the) 17 deans who oversee the schools of business, film and theater, law, medicine and others spent about $2 million on travel and entertainment from 2008 to 2012,” write TCIR reporters Erica Perez and Agustin Armendariz.

First class airfare accounts for a big part of that spending.

TCIR reports that a handful of UCLA officials are jetting across the country in first-class style, despite a long-standing UCLA policy that prohibits the university from paying for luxurious travel accommodations.

The university has a medical exception to that policy, of which a number of UCLA officials have been taking advantage.

According to The Center for Investigative Reporting, six of the 17 academic deans at UCLA’s Westwood campus have routinely “submitted doctors’ notes stating they have a medical need to fly in a class other than economy, costing the university $234,000 more than it would have for coach-class flights.”

The integrity of those permission slips is being called into question, upon the revelation that Judy Olian is one of the deans in medical need. Olian is an avid cyclist and a self-described “cardio junkie,” notes TCIR.

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While UCLA leaders have been living large, their students have seen their tuition and fees jump about 70 percent.

Perez and Armendariz write, “UCLA is not the only place within the state’s public university system with liberal spending on executives. The UC Board of Regents this month approved an annual car allowance of $8,916 and a moving allowance of $142,500 for incoming President Janet Napolitano, the departing Department of Homeland Security chief.”

We suspect examples of exorbitant and irresponsible spending could be found at all publicly funded universities and colleges. Experience suggests that the privileged class likes to live extravagantly, especially whenever taxpayers – and, in these cases, tuition-paying parents and students – are covering the bills.

Hopefully, this report from The Center for Investigative Reporting gets other journalists, parents and students to question the spending practices of their local university leaders.

It seems some already are. Katherine Berry, a self-identified university student, reacted strongly to the story.

“My fellow classmates and I are struggling financially to pay for college and facing massive debt,” Berry wrote in the comment section attached to the TCIR story. “This is absolutely disgusting. Granted, this lady’s expenses aren’t going to single-handedly make our school system come toppling down but that money should have gone towards financial aid, scholarships and other legitimate university expenses.

“She should be ashamed of herself and I hope she is fired.”