| Higher Education |
Watershed Moment
in History for UC
"We have reached a watershed moment for California's public higher education system," states Assistant Professor of Education José Luis Santos. "For the first time in the University of California's history, tuition and fees now exceed state funding as a major source of revenue."
Writing in the Huffington Post about what a steady increase of tuition and fees will mean for students, Professor Santos sees a trend of privatization taking place for the UC, the largest and most prestigious public system of higher education in the U.S. Now drawing a greater |
 |
share of its income from California's students and their families due to a dramatic reduction in long-term state funding, UC is also looking to increase its enrollment numbers of out-of-state students, who pay higher tuition and fees. As the affordability of UC declines, students from middle and lower-income families will be forced to seek less selective and lower cost alternatives, resulting in a demographic shift at the UC where ultimately there will be less diversity, fewer Californians, and more students from higher-income families.
"Higher education attainment has long been considered a vehicle for social mobility, especially for marginalized students. As UCs adopt business models in managing admissions, costs, funding, and the like, underrepresented minorities and poorer students are faced with fewer options in attending the UCs, especially the most selective ones, as tuition and fees take a steep climb," says Santos.
Regardless of the changes to how or from where it draws its income, UC is still committed to providing a quality higher education to Californians as outlined in the California Master Plan for Higher Education. Says Professor Santos: "Although this march to what the UC would call "self-sufficiency" v. "privatization" appears to be permanent and irreversible, the UC may still have time to innovate along the way and encounter new crossroads that maintain its place as a great public higher education system that offers high quality, accessible, and affordable higher education."
Read Professor Santos' full essay and comment on this issue on the Huffington Post.
|
