I saw this piece in the Business section of the Post yesterday... In case you're wondering, they charge $43,450 a year tuition.
Yup. I believe there is talk about going back to the pre Prop-13 tuition days, it's much needed if we want to compete with the rest of the world.
Even with prop-13, the CA university system has remained top-notch with some of the best schools in the country (Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, etc.). It would be great to see free college education again, even though my kids are way past that now.
Agree. I live near Santa Clara University, Stanford University is not far. Berkeley is a neat day trip. Literally.
The only thing repealing Prop. 13 would do is to throw some elderly lower income folks out of their homes. The number of Prop. 13 houses has dropped sharply over the last 40 years and continues to decline. It is routinely bashed to cover up the real causes of budget shortfalls. I managed to work my way through school when Prop. 13 had a much greater impact, as did most of my peers. Very few people took out student loans, as none of us wanted to graduate under a pile of debt. State colleges and universities still do not charge tuition. They bypassed that restriction decades ago by charging registration fees. The payment is a fee to register for classes. Don't pay the fee, you can't register and can't attend class. Additional charges are levied to support student clubs and organizations. I always wondered why I, as a poor student, had to pay a big wad of extra cash to fund somebody else's excursions and hobbies.
In the 90s the Federal Govt greatly increased the amount of aid available. Without a corresponding increase in the supply of schools, normal economic factors took over. Whenever excess fiat currency is injected into a system, the system must necessarily adjust. The two factors that remove the excess supply of currency are taxes and inflation. In the case of higher education, the notion of making school more accessible by throwing cash at it is an abject failure. The unintended consequences are an educational system that is totally unaffordable and, many times, leaves students with degrees that won't earn enough money to cover their debts. It's almost reached a point that unless a person is pursuing a professional degree (law, medicine, engineering, etc), they would be financially better off simply working and learning a skilled trade or apprenticing. One cannot become wealthy working for others, anyhow. /rant
The world needs skilled labor. All earnest work is right and honorable. We need to stop giving young kids the impression that working with one's hands and back are somehow not a good life. I am far happier wearing overalls than a suit. Tried it both ways...
Back when I was going to HS, there were two tracks, College Prep and VoTech. My friends in the VoTech track are just now selling their businesses and retiring to very comfortable lives. This latest generation has been brainwashed that college is the only answer
The military (for those who accept the great risk) is also an excellent way to gain technical skills and also attain experience in a position of responsibility at a very young age.
The 20-something guys driving their Lamborghinis and Ferraris down my street the other day would disagree. Working at a pre-IPO startup has made lots of people very wealthy indeed. Of course, not all startups turn out that way, far from it. I agree completely that a university degree is not mandatory to have a great life. It sure helps in a lot of cases, but there are many other paths to success.