I know it sounds like ancient history, but when I was going to UCLA from 1956 to 1960, tuition at the prestigious, cheerfully taxpayer-funded University of California's nine campuses was $42 a semester for state residents. Throw in mandatory membership in the Associated Students -- another 8 bucks -- and the bill came to $50. That's $100 for an academic year.
This fall, a year's in-state tuition at UC is about $8,000.
That's an increase of around 1,600 percent. Even averaged out, the rate of yearly increases comes to 32%. Sounds almost as bad as health care inflation.
I feel sorry for today's college students -- or would-be students -- and their low- or middle-income families. They simply don't have the opportunities that my generation had to pull themselves up a rung or more in society. It was a commitment to public education that gave California the nation's No. 1 workforce and helped make the Golden State the most populous state. Now, virtually unaffordable prices and mediocre budgets threaten the future not only of a great university but of a once-great state.
Causes for this lamentable situation start with the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 1964. Taxpayers were so maddened by the sight of what they considered coddled and lucky students protesting and demonstrating that they voted for Ronald Reagan as governor in 1966, ushering in a long retrenchment from liberalism, the speedy firing of the luckless UC President Clark Kerr and the start of a slide in the university's place in Californians' affections and attention.
Conservative anti-tax sentiments (seen glaringly in 1978's property tax-cutting Proposition 13) and lately the recession's hit on state budgets have combined to boost tuition to its damaging levels. The Legislature has cut its UC funding by 22% in recent months. The strapped Regents of the UC system have had little choice but to make up as much of the shortfall as possible on the backs of the students.
Student protests get pained sympathy but no rollbacks. And the trend promises to worsen.
In a depressing time, it's especially saddening to see the dimming of the old promise of a free public education -- a social contract that set America apart from most other countries and led to this nation's comparatively high proportion of college graduates.
For myself, I'd be willing to pay more taxes to give a break to the students who are following me -- and a break to the future of California.
