A question. When I went to the University of California, tuition was pretty cheap, about $100 a year, which is about $800 in today’s dollars. Actually, that was a registration fee, meaning the U.C. system didn’t actually charge tuition. California’s system of state colleges cost even less, and city colleges, what we call community colleges here, cost nothing. During the same time, California was in the top ten in K-12 per student spending. How was the state able to be so generous with its education back then compared to today? Were tax revenues, and tax rates, that much higher? This is a genuine question. I don’t know the answer.
This isn’t a new question for me, or a new source of wonder that we put so little value on educating our children that we keep cutting state funding for public higher education. But it arose today because of an article about some trouble our ex-Governor Janet Napolitano, now University of California president, is in. The U.C. system has been admitting out-of-state students who have lower qualifications than some California students who are being rejected, according to a state auditor’s report.
It shouldn’t be that way. The first duty of a state’s college system is to educate its own students. Out-of-staters come second. But the reason is obvious. Resident tuition and fees come to $12,240 a year. In a world where earning a college degree is increasingly important, that’s a prohibitively high cost, leading to the crippling debt our college students face. But as high as that is, nonresident tuition is three times higher: $37,000 a year. When the university system is cash strapped, it should be no surprise that it courts as many out-of-state high rollers as it can.
Some California legislators are Shocked! Shocked! that the universities are giving preference to out-of-state students. They’re not nearly so shocked that their funding cuts have put the university on the horns of a dilemma: cut educational services and standards or figure out new sources of income, like, say, adding students who pay three times the too-high tuition paid by residents.
A Protesting-Higher-College-Costs-in-the-Sixties Note: Ronald Reagan was governor during my college years. He wanted to raise the cost of going to college, which led to many of us protesting the proposed fee hike. We knew that would only be the beginning, that college costs would continue to rise, but we were actually outraged that our college cost would go up — what, 50 percent? 100 percent? All the way to $1,600 a year in today’s dollars? Ah, those were the days!
This article appears in Mar 24-30, 2016.
Well, duh. Arizona universities have been doing this for years — our out-of-state tuition is lower than resident tuition in California, and if we’re not as prestigious as Berkeley or UCLA, we’re better regarded than the Cal State schools.
“Run it like a business.” That seems to be part of the Republican political mantra. OK, let’s imagine a business with some customers who are willing to pay 4 or 5 times as much for the product you offer as some other customers. If we “Run it like a business” then wouldn’t we do our damnedest to get more of those willing to pay more and fewer of the others?
The problem is that government, in this case a public university, isn’t a business and shouldn’t be run like one!
Seems to me that California’s raise in taxes that closed a billion dollar+ deficit is a much better solution than Arizona’s laying off emergency service personnel once again, selling off public lands that fund education (killing the goose that lays the golden eggs) and cutting education to the bone, except the Koch’s APEC privatized charter schools. We’re getting dumber, average IQ of 100 — 105 for college graduates, compared to 90 for a chimpanzee, which is just the way the rich want it. Poor workforce desperate for money to feed the family will work long hours for less…worked for Stalin. 23 States totally controlled by republicans although there are more democrats than republicans and Arizona has almost as many voters who identify as independents, but 13% republicans and 11% democrats turned out for the presidential primary. Meanwhile, the millions we spent training our police and fire department forces will be enjoyed by another state who hires what we trained. The real kicker, these cops and fire fighters who lose their jobs will still vote republican, against their own best interest.