Higher Education

In addition to the $800-million bond issue for public schools, voters will be asked to approve Proposition 121--$450 million in bonds for higher education construction--in the June 5 primary. The money would be divided about equally among the University of California, the California State University system and the state's community colleges, and would be used for everything from replacing the electrical system at UC Riverside to building an $8.

Let's go to the numbers again. Last week I explored some facts and figures about elementary and secondary public schools. Now let's look at some data from the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau about high school graduates and how they fare in higher education and the job market. In 1991, 71.2% of the nation's high school seniors in public schools actually graduated. Minnesota's graduation rate was highest (89.5%); Louisiana's was lowest (54.3%).

Fee increases on top of fee increases at Cal State and UC campuses will cost society even more than it will students. Higher education is suffering and the victims are the students. While students in the California State University system still feel the crunch from this year's 20% fee increase, what does Gov. Pete Wilson do? He proposes an additional 40% increase in student fees in the fall. The University of California did not have much luck either.

Lowering interest rates on students loans captured most of the attention earlier this month when President Clinton signed a bill that revisited federal higher education programs for the first time since 1992. But Congress tucked a few other things into the bill's 668 pages. Take campus crime, for example. Congress stripped colleges of some of the artful dodges used to keep criminal activity--and the results of campus disciplinary proceedings--from public view. Or consider teacher training.

When the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges recently approved a revised "statement on diversity," it crossed over from its traditional role of evaluating a curriculum's minimum standards into one of mandating what should be taught in the classroom. In effect, the association wants to enforce a multicultural code. In so doing, it is violating the autonomy of scholastic programs and infringing upon students' right to choose their courses. Donald R.

Lyman Glenny, 83, who built UC Berkeley's Center for the Study of Higher Education into the nation's leading authority on what colleges and universities should be doing, died of bone cancer Sept. 6 in Walnut Creek, Calif. In an era of expansive growth to provide higher education for baby boomers, Glenny wrote influential studies on such problems as planning, budgeting, management, programming, student financial aid and educational quality. Born in Trent, S.D.

The League of Women Voters will sponsor a meeting Saturday addressing questions related to the need for higher education in Ventura County. The meeting, consisting of a panel of six speakers, will last from 10 a.m. to noon at Community Presbyterian Church, 115 Lincoln Drive, in Ventura.

Increasingly, educators are meeting with cable operators; television, publishing, telephone, computer and software executives; and an assortment of entrepreneurs and their funders. What's going on is the convergence of the information, education and digital ages in a way that will have a profound and growing impact on U.S. colleges and universities. Higher education must seize the moment or risk marginalization.