It's time to overhaul Prop. 13 to save state
The state’s Master Plan for Higher Education is crumbling along with its roads. Adopted in 1960, the education plan promised free tuition in the state’s colleges and universities, and access to those campuses regardless of income level. But after three straight years of state funding cuts, the UC Regents in 1994 formally abandoned the commitment to a tuition-free education. UC students now contribute $1 for every $2 the state chips in – in the mid-’60s, that ratio was 1 to 19 – and the average student fee at UC is $7,509 a year. When I was at Cal in the late 1960s, student loans were almost nonexistent, but now the average annual cost of attending UC is nearly $24,000 a year, and half the students have to take out loans to graduate.
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by Tim Holt, The San Francisco Chronicle.