Great beaches, a gentle climate and the best system of public higher education in the country, maybe the world. California is famous for all three, but what it deserves abundant praise for is the last of those. How long it will continue to earn that praise is another matter. The state's visionary Master Plan for Higher Education, the engine that for years drove California toward educational leadership, and, as a result, economic leadership, is about to turn 50. It is not aging well.
The plan itself isn't to blame so much as the lack of money to carry it out. Right now, the dismal economy is driving deep cuts in higher education. But California has been giving short shrift to its public colleges and universities for years now, inching away from the promise of equal and affordable access based on merit.
Under the 1960 plan, the University of California, a collection of elite research universities, was expected to provide a top-tier undergraduate and graduate-school education for the top 12.5% of the state's students. California State University was the workhorse that all students in the top third of the state's high-school graduates could attend. And everyone would have virtually free access to the community colleges, where students could receive vocational training, life-enrichment courses or an associate's degree that would give them a boost into a four-year college.
But that has changed. Tuition of more than $10,000, recently approved by the UC Board of Regents, isn't affordable for many families, and even higher fees have been levied on various professional schools, including the ones that train social workers, who earn mediocre salaries that make it hard to repay big student loans. CSU recently warned that it would not be able to accept 45,000 eligible students who apply next year, and San Diego State announced for the first time that it could not accept all of the eligible local students. Everyone is still welcome at the community colleges, which raised fees slightly -- but just try enrolling in the necessary classes. At De Anza College in the Silicon Valley, close to 10% of students this fall were unable to enroll in any classes, and a third were shut out of at least one class. The college had been forced to cut 300 courses from its schedule.
For years, reports from various organizations have warned that the master plan would be endangered if the state didn't change course. UC would lose its prestige, eligible students would go without a college education. Now the state is past the warning stage. Public higher education in California is being constricted in ways that make it hard to recognize compared with what it was just a decade ago.
This month, a joint legislative committee began a series of hearings on the master plan, looking at whether modifications are needed either to the initial vision or to the three-tiered system of higher education. The first hearing made it clear that there is enormous opposition to making any substantial changes in the master plan itself, especially trimming its ambitions in reaction to the state's current financial crisis. But even if the master plan is not officially revamped in any major way, Californians cannot ignore that it is undergoing a de facto rewrite. Low cost, universal access, top educational and research quality -- these three basic underpinnings are eroding fast.
This is happening just as officials elsewhere in the world are looking to mimic the California model. Western Europe is considering the creation of an open-access college program; China is planning to open several UC-type systems. Chinese leaders aren't doing this as a gift to their young people; they recognize that affordable, top-level college education pays off in a robust economic engine and more stable and well-compensated jobs.
An educated and capable citizenry tends to be more involved in civic life and have lower rates of crime, teenage pregnancy and other costly social problems. And a system that offers access to higher education fulfills the consummate American dream that anyone has the opportunity to achieve great things in this country -- an especially potent message in a state with so many immigrant students.
College officials bear some of the responsibility for their financial troubles. Both CSU and UC, especially the latter, have been rightly criticized in recent years for giving lavish and unnecessary perks to various administrators. Officials at both systems struck an unwise side deal with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004, in which they agreed to raise fees appreciably and lower admissions in exchange for six years of steadily increasing funding. They received three years of that increase before cuts set in again.
