Posted on 04/11/2012 5:56:54 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Tuition increases are threatening to place a University of California education out of the reach of working-class and middle-class students.
The roll of Californians who rose from modest circumstances to enrich our lives and our society after receiving a taxpayer-supported education at the University of California — or Cal State or the community college system — is too long to enumerate here. They're scientists who made world-altering discoveries, literary artists, composers and musicians, political leaders of city, state and country.
So here's a radical proposal: As tuition increases threaten to place a UC education out of the reach of working-class and middle-class students, let's reinvigorate the notion of a free UC education.
The bounty California reaped by providing an essentially free education to its most promising high school graduates largely has been forgotten, which only makes it easier for political leaders to keep cutting state budget support.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
unhireable = unmarketable
Let’s bring back the idea of people paying for the goods and services that they use.
Wouldn't it be cool if college was free ? And you could do whatever you want in life? And there was plenty of everything for everyone? And you just worked at what you want, when you felt like it? 'Cause we all SHARE everything. And the RICH people would pay for everything. And nobody would have to be a janitor or garbage collector or learn math or physics. That's why I love socialism, Dude!
Seriously though, I would strongly support tax incentives for industry funding of excellent achievers in key disciplines; engineering, physics, mathematics, chemistry, etc. I would probably even support some sort of Federal scholarship program which pays tuition for medical, engineering, and science degrees, in return for years of military service, (but these programs already exist, don't they? ROTC scholarships and the like?) But the programs need to be awarded/maintained based upon merit, and directed towards vocations which provide the hope of future utility to the funding agency.
or we can live in liberal wa-wa land and wait for someone else to pay for our lifestyle.
Its possible. Well, it WAS possible before the PRK reached its current state.
For instance, they could start by cutting all of the useless “ethnic, gender, racial, and gay studies” departments along with all their instructors and staff.
That alone should make a heck of a dent in the operating expenses.
‘Tuition increases are threatening to place a University of California education out of the reach of working-class and middle-class students.’
OK, but wouldn’t it be a good first step to figure out why rather than jump to conclusions?
‘...too long to enumerate here...’
A partial list of the top would be useful. As it is we only have the authors word for it.
Lots of fail in this article. BTW stuffing more public $ into the college system will only inflate everyones tax bill and open the gate for ever more pilfering in future.
The student loan program,like Section 8 housing, and credit cards make it possible for people to run up debt getting things they can’t afford ;plus the increased demand drives prices of everything higher.
There is almost nothing that a government program can’t make worse.
I don’t believe prop 13 was the pivot point of decline, just an accelerant.
I graduated HS in 1972 in CA. At the time and at that HS (Palos Verdes) graduation requirements were pretty tight. I was, as this author classified Earl Warren, an indifferent HS student and got out with barely a C average.
My sister graduated from the same high school in 1974. Her graduation requirements were considerably lower.
I graduated in 1983 with a BS in Chemical Engineering from CSULB. My education was interrupted by service in the US Army. It was not a lightweight curriculum. I virtually ruined my 3.5 GPA (lowered to 3.0) in one semester by trying to take 21 units of engineering in a single semester. This done to avoid having to attend an addition term to get to graduation. I took between 15 and 18 units all other semesters, all engineering or science execpt those general education requirements: mostly romps of spewing back what the “educator” told us to think.
Decline in the CA education system, it would seem to me, began well before prop 13. Not all courses of study experienced a decline, or as rapid a decline, after prop 13. Generally the UC/CSU system got real “creative” in how they extracted cash from students as a sure result of prop 13 and the trend toward doing things other than teaching.
The NappyOne
Extended day care.
I’m not sure of the date that Prop 13 went into effect because we moved out of state in August, 1973 — partly because my husband got a good job opportunity in TX and partly because of our disgust at the politics and the schools in northern CA. I know that it was after we left.
So, the schools had already started to decline with lots of leftist indoctrination being foisted on the students in the classroom well before Prop 13. I just meant that Prop 13 dried up a lot of money formerly raised by property tax. Some of the school districts that I am familiar with are forced to raise funds privately to make up the gap.
Coincidentally, we also missed the great escalation in CA housing prices, so we did not reap the great monetary rewards from the sale of our house that other people achieved just a couple of years later. We just saw the writing on the wall earlier than most and had the means to get out!
I’m a Cal Poly Grad - EE 79 - so I’m close to you in time and space on my education here. (Still live in Northern CA - would like to get out as I retire.) To document my own costs - I received one scholarship while in school - $270. It paid tuition cost for the entire year!
The one thing I disagree with is your statement that the UCs should stop doing research. This is one of the two major distinctions between the Cal States and the UCs. The Cal States are really the teaching schools, while the UCs are the research schools. CSs for the most part don’t give out Phds. (There is a Dr Education naturally available ;-) The UCs do... thus the main tie-in to research.
The real issue is - who pays for the research! It CAN be industry! That would the one real change I would make to your description.
The simple facts are that as long as CA has the tax structure it does, and we have the spiraling costs due to public unions, retirement costs, and student loan programs such things are simply out of our financial reach. Until you put your financial house in order, all other things need to be put on the back burner.
Other Freepers may find this “communist” but I find some advantages to society to having a lower cost higher education system. It should be affordable with SOME work! You should be able to pay for it with the income made from a lower-income job while being able to feed, cloth, and house yourself. If you have to live in a dorm and eat at a cafeteria - that’s okay by me.
I went through the Junior colleges ($15/semester plus books) , and then spent 3 years getting a BS degree. I worked during the summers and paid half of my college costs with the other supplied by my parents. Finally I paid all of my costs myself during my last year there. I value what I received, but it wasn’t handed to me on a platter. If you value most what you have to earn!
That covers everyone at the LA Times,they love Karl Marx.
Clarification on research vs. teaching. Don’t mean they should stop, but the trend is that full professors pawn off teaching responsibilities to student teachers. That is a fraud in my opinion and has to stop.
In our age of being educated and in our discipline nobody handed us a get out of college free card. Even if it was inexpensive to us in our day, it was hard work. I earned a scholarship to go to CSU, the GI bill (my first GI paycheck for a month was $256 - you bet I earned that scholarship). I worked as an engineer in CA for just 14 years. Now I pay taxes in other states. I don’t think 14 years of earnings was enough time to return to CA the cost of what had already became a bloated education bill to the taxpayers. When I started a semester cost $108. When I left 4 years later, it was over $1000. I saw the start of the hyper inflation in Big Education. Well, Big Education is still unaccountable for their gouging and part of that is professors who “teach” a course but never show up to class (cost of lower education quality). Big Education in CA needs reform before they come to the taxpayers for more money.
The NappyOne
If this is his way of reducing professor pay levels to reasonable amounts, I’d be all for it. Of course it’s not.
It would be fitting for them to work on the cheap.
They always tell us it’s for the children. Let’s see if it really is when they have that thrown back in their face.
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