Berkeley will remain great, but will it retain its public character?
It appears that the group that will be most disadvantaged by our funding challenges are not those who are truly low income people but rather the State’s middle-income families. Specifically, current federal, state and university financial aid plans protect the poor; however, the middle class – that is, those whose family incomes fall in the $60,000 to $120,000 range – receive limited aid and the current disinvestment in higher education by the State of California will only exacerbate their plight. Public universities are the conduits into mainstream society for those from financially disadvantaged backgrounds and the key to the American dream of an increasingly better life for the middle class. The State of California’s completely irresponsible disinvestment in the future of its public universities, is an epitaph, not for UC Berkeley – which has survived as a great university for 141 years and will do so for the next 141 – but for the shortsightedness of our State government for its citizens. That is the real tragedy.
Read full article [here].
by Robert Birgeneau, UC Berkeley News.