Tuitions

Among all the painfully underfunded programs in California, which ones should receive extra money if the state were to suddenly bring in an extra billion dollars a year? That's like asking a cash-strapped homeowner who comes into a few thousand dollars which house repair he would tackle after years of deferring the most basic projects. Replace the dying furnace or the balky toilets? How about the dangerously faulty electrical wiring? Chances are the homeowner wouldn't put a new granite countertop at the top of the list, yet that's in effect what a pair of legislative proposals, SB 1500 and 1501, by Assembly Speaker John A. Perez (D-Los Angeles)

While her classmates agonize over which college to attend, high school senior Samantha Morgan is passing up offers from Cal State campuses in Long Beach and San Jose. She is heading out of California to avoid overcrowded classes and other state budget problems. And she can afford it thanks to a little-known program that offers discounts at public colleges and universities to students from 15 states, most of them in the West. Morgan is taking advantage of the Western Undergraduate Exchange to enroll at Northern Arizona University this fall.

Nearing midnight and with the sting of pepper spray in the air, Santa Monica College trustees wondered how their plan to offer a selection of higher cost classes this summer had come to be so misunderstood. For many on the eight-member panel, which includes a humanities professor, an ACLU board member and a college counselor, the plan was conceived as a progressive response to drastic state funding cuts and was intended to increase access and allow more students to graduate and transfer.

The son of a railroad worker, Earl Warren came from a family keeping a desperate finger hold on a working-class existence at the turn of the last century. Yet when he left high school in Bakersfield in 1908, there was no question where he was headed: to Berkeley and a free education at the University of California. There he proved an indifferent student scholastically but an enthusiastic absorber of "the new life, the freedom, the companionship, the romance of the university," Warren recalled years later.

SAN FRANCISCO — University of California President Mark G. Yudof on Wednesday strongly backed Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed tax increase aimed for the November ballot, warning of big tuition increases next year if it fails and offering hope that tuition would remain stable if it passes. Yudof urged the regents, who were meeting in San Francisco, to endorse the governor's tax plan at a future session. "In my view, it represents the best opportunity I've seen in my four years in California for the state to clamber out of a sinkhole of fiscal uncertainty and move forward into a better, more prosperous future," he said.

Tuition and fees* for in-state students at some major universities University of Michigan: $13,961 UC Berkeley: $12,835 University of Colorado, Boulder: $10,098 University of Connecticut: $10,670 University of Texas, Austin: $9,794 University of Oregon: $8,789 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: $7,008 Source: The College Board * 2011-12 academic year ...

Occupy Movement protests planned for colleges nationwide attracted modest yet passionate crowds at California campuses on Thursday as participants decried state budget cuts to education and the resulting hikes in tuition. No arrests were reported around the state, and most academic schedules were not disrupted by the rallies. However, many classes at UC Santa Cruz were canceled as about 200 demonstrators blocked vehicle access to the campus. A motorist attempting to drive through the crowd struck several protesters, but no one was seriously injured, officials said.

As chairman of the governing board of the California State University system, Herbert L. Carter has positioned himself as a consensus builder at a time when the system has been battered as never before by budget cuts, student protests and discord over salary and hiring policies. The former president of the United Way and chairman of the Los Angeles Commission on Human Relations has spent decades attempting to forge compromise with differing factions. But now he is struggling to bridge the gap between Republicans and Democrats in the state Legislature to win a second term on the Board of Trustees.

President Obama embraced the idea of federal action to restrain the rapidly increasing cost of higher education, giving a boost to a long-simmering policy idea that has gained steam amid growing frustration with rising tuition. His proposal that colleges and universities cut costs or risk losing out on some federal aid was part of a larger package of ideas for college affordability unveiled by the president on Friday in a speech at the University of Michigan. Obama wants to increase funds for higher education, mostly through an expansion of federal loan programs.

President Obama on Friday challenged colleges and universities to cut costs and improve quality or risk losing out to competitors in the race for federal aid. "We are putting colleges on notice," Obama told students at the University of Michigan on Friday morning. "You can't assume that you'll just jack up tuition every single year. If you can't stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers every year will go down. " Obama probably won't be able to pass his college affordability agenda this year, with a divided Congress opposing most of his plans.