Public Higher Education: Free Tuition for California Students to the UC, CSU and Community College Systems Is Possible Today
In 1960, lawmakers created the Master Plan for Higher Education, which was originally committed to free tuition for all Californians pursuing education in California’s community colleges, the 23-campus California State University system, and the 10-campus University of California. Highly successful in building a system with the best public universities in the world, the plan quickly became a key component of the state-funded infrastructure that has made California the sixth largest economy in the world. Beginning around 2000, this public model increasingly shifted to one in which higher education has been viewed as a commodity. State funds have been slashed and replaced with billions in student debt as tuition and other fees have risen dramatically. The “reset” proposal described in the paper would restore state per-student funding to the three-segment public higher education system to the level it received in 2000-2001 while ending tuition and mandatory fees.
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by The Council of UC Faculty Associations, San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center.