Can California make good on the promise of low-cost higher education for all?
Fifty years ago this month, California promised a low-cost, high-quality university education for every qualified high school graduate in the state. But that promise — inflated by growing populations and academic aspirations — expanded beyond the state’s willingness to pay for it. What went wrong? How did the university system that was long the envy of the world suddenly become the focus of angry street protests, overcrowded classrooms, soaring tuition and a monumental debate over whether the state can ever make good again on its groundbreaking mission? While the recession turned a slow-brewing problem into an instant crisis, a San Jose Mercury News analysis of California’s higher-education mess reveals that many factors drove the inevitable and ugly collision between the university system’s ambitious and uncoordinated growth and the state’s declining ability and desire to pay for it. Among the most critical: Plummeting state support: Since 1990, state spending per student has droppe
