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Friday, November 20, 2009

Requiem for a University

We feel we should say something about the ongoing budgetary crisis in California and its effect on the state's higher-education system. We're not self-interestedly kvetching about the community colleges; indeed, we're doing comparatively well: no layoffs so far, and booming applications. OK, we can't actually add any classes to put these new students into, but that's a minor technicality. We choose to feel warm and fuzzy when we see students lined up outside the door trying to add our basic writing classes at the start of the semester.

No, we're talking about what's going on in the University of California (UC). It may be hard to remember with all the recent turmoil, but the UC is a "crown-jewel" of public higher education. As recently as 2004, Berkeley (the flagship college) was named the number 2 research university IN THE WORLD (Harvard was ranked number one). Berkeley faculty have won 21 Nobel Prizes--and that's just one college in the ten-school UC system. Now, however, the system is in major trouble.

The UC regents voted yesterday to raise fees 32%. This will raise total costs for in-state students to over $10,000. Sure, it's still a "bargain" if you compare it to private colleges that may cost over $50,000 a year--until you remember that this is a PUBLIC system.

Reasonable people can disagree as to whether higher education should be free. But once you've established a public system, it's somewhat ludicrous to put it beyond the reach of the people for whom it was designed: What's the point of a public education system if great swaths of the public can't access it?

Maybe we're just depressed. The days are shorter and getting colder (it never gets REALLY cold in the Bay Area--just nippy enough to chill the soul). And everywhere we turn we hear ever more dismal news about the economy. People are losing jobs. People are losing homes. Even people with relatively stable jobs (hello!) feel deep unease and struggle to make ends meet. And now, the University of California, one of the great institutions is blocking students, bleeding jobs, and losing faculty to vulture colleges only to eager to pick upon the UC carcass.

Yes, we know, they're not quite dead yet, and the system probably will recover, but many, many people are going to suffer in the meantime.

2 comments:

  1. I heard about this on NPR today. What a shame. So many kids desperately need that system.

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  2. And WHO, but the idio...uh... good citizens of California, have voted, time and again, to cut taxes (no matter what), recall politically savvy governors and replace them with EXTREMELY bad actors, place all kinds of demented demands on manufacturers that, while they may have some MINOR effect on the environment, place all kinds of good & servics ouyt of reach, allow oil/power companies to set up artificial "shortages" to raise rates, with NO retribution, and, finally, seem to feel it's perfectly O.K. to build hugely expensive homes in fire and mud zones, thereby raising exhorbitantly the costs of Fire fighters, rescue workers, insurance, etc. (all monies that COULD be used for education). Yes, I know their are SANE people in California, too. But, as in Washington, they have NO power... and seem to like it that way! The fault, Dear Brutus... well, you know!

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