MyDD :: Undoing Reagan – Restoring the California Dream

Ronald Reagan launched his political career in 1966 in his run for the governorship in California by targeting UC Berkeley’s student peace activists, its professors, and, to a great extent, the University of California itself. His oft-repeated mantra was “to clean up the mess at Berkeley.” In the end, he destroyed what was one of the great equalizers in California’s meritocracy. Under Reagan began our shift from education as a right to education as a privilege for the wealthy or as an investment for the rest of us.

… He proposed deep across budget cuts for the system and cavalierly suggested that Berkeley sell its collections of rare books in the Bancroft Library and hold bake sales in Sproul Plaza. He repeated Milton Friedman’s views whenever and wherever he could: “Individuals should bear the costs of investments in themselves and receive the rewards.”

“The state should not subsidized intellectual curiosity” declared Reagan when he finally ended a century-long state policy of free tuition in what has long been the nation’s crown jewel of public universities. Founded in 1868 as a city of learning, the University of California was free for all. Today tuition runs $9,748 for in-state residents. Total cost runs over $28,000. And it is about to go up significantly effectively ending the American dream for tens of thousands who will be priced out of the nation’s largest higher education system. For the 2010-2011 academic year, tuition will rise by 32 percent.

via MyDD :: Undoing Reagan – Restoring the California Dream.

This is the argument against public funding of the UC made by Reagan in the 1960s.  Can you inagine that the UC originally had free tuition?

How do you argue against the idea that individuals should pay for investments in their own future (i.e., their careers)?

uc budget crisis: Catherine Cole

The New Public Domain – At Public Universities – Less for More – NYTimes.com

This NYT article published after our class started should be required reading.  It provides an excellent overview of the position of the universities and the trend towards privatization, the replacement of public funds by private, and the consequences thereof.  Read the whole thing.

Public universities have historically been underpriced: average in-state tuition is $7,020 this year. A re-evaluation had to happen, says David E. Shulenburger, vice president for academic affairs at the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, because the benefit has been to higher income families. “You can’t justify that subsidy for wealthier students,” he says. The trend, accelerated by the economic shakeup, is from cheap to what he calls “moderate” tuition rates, at least by private-school standards.

Mr. Shulenburger sees the tuition increases as part of a larger movement toward privatization of the most desirable flagships. With state contributions largely flat or down over the last 15 years, and enrollments and costs up, many top flagships are turning to nonpublic sources for money and, in some cases, accepting larger numbers of out-of-state students, who often pay twice the tuition of residents.

At the same time, applications are pouring in from students shut out by the stratospheric cost of private colleges. That’s generally a good thing. Flagships are attracting more wealthy and better-prepared students. Yet as the counterargument goes, a flagship’s traditional mission is to educate its own, especially a state’s low- and middle-income students. The evolution under way is putting some flagships out of reach for the students who were typically enrolled even a decade ago. Each year, the quality of students as well as the budget model skews closer to that of elite private universities.

via The New Public Domain – At Public Universities – Less for More – NYTimes.com.

So does it make sense for the state to subsidize tuitions for public universities when this mainly helps the upper middle class students who are more likely to attend college anyway?  But of course, when tuition is raised, and more out-of-state students attend, it’s the lower income students, and lower middle class students, who are disproportionately hurt.

Later in the article, the point is made that out of state University of Michigan students pay more than Princeton students.

This point is also a good one:

Public universities have assets that privates do not. They offer powerhouse sports programs, bustling campuses and more diverse student bodies.

This “public” experience of the university that attracts many students, why shouldn’t the state expect students and their families to pay more for it?

Blue Gal: Let me explain “rationing” to the teabaggers.

 

 

[Photoshopped their sign just a lil’ bit. Original here.]

…

There were about 250 parents and kids there in the crowded auditorium, being sold on the idea of applying to this magnet school. It’s like selling water in the desert. Five hundred fifth-graders are expected to apply for approximately 100 available spots in this school. The sales pitch was completely unnecessary except to provide some eighth-graders with some public speaking “enrichment”.

And we all sat there like sheep. No one shouted out in rage that the other option, one many of us fear and four out of five of us will be forced to consider, is sending our kids to the assigned residential school for our address. You know, the MIDDLE school that gets occasional good reviews because the SHERIFF’S DEPUTIES that roam the hall are really nice people.

That access to decent public education, right here in our own community, is rationed by a completely arbitrary lottery.

via Blue Gal: Let me explain “rationing” to the teabaggers..

What do you think she means that access to quality education is “rationed”?  Is there a parallel with the health care debate, here?

Table A-1. Employment status of the civilian population by sex and age

October 2009, unemployment rate: 10.2%

Men over 20 years old: 10.7%

Women over 20 years old: 8.1%

Table A-1. Employment status of the civilian population by sex and age.

Income concentration: Top heavy | The Economist

 

AMERICA is the wealthiest country in the world and its rich keep earning more. In 2007, the latest year for which data are available, the top 1% increased their share of the country’s income to 23.5%, according to analysis of tax returns by a pair of economists, Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. The concentration of income earned by this top percentile now stands at its highest since 1928. Two-thirds of the country’s total gains in the five years to 2007 accrued to the top 1%, whereas the bottom 90th percentile saw only 12% of the extra income.

 

Income concentration: Top heavy | The Economist.

health care video

Here is another video on health care reform from the comments on the Thought Bubbler post.  Thanks to those of you who posted this! It also does a very good job breaking down the issue.