Some of this was due to the recent economic downturn. But shifting an increasing portion of the cost of higher education from the general fund to individual students has a much longer history. In an earlier day a highly educated citizenry was considered a public good, benefiting all, therefore supported from public funds. That ended in 1967 with Gov. Ronald Reagan’s inaugural address. He announced an across-the-board budget cut of 10 percent for all agencies including the UC. Soon after he announced that the UC budget would be cut by 30 percent and tuition imposed. This would all but destroy the educational mission of the UC. Reagan had to back off on the larger cut to the university’s budget, but from this point on the UC budget became a political football and budgets often suffered.

Read full article [here].
by Bob Williams, The Redding Record Searchlight.

Posted: December 7th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.