Over the past fifty years, few states have been able to harness the power of higher education to drive growth and improve the quality of life for its residents quite like California.

The state set its course in 1960, by adopting a Master Plan for Higher Education that landed it on the cover of Time magazine. The plan spelled out who should be guaranteed access to which state institutionsContinue Reading »

Students protesting in Sacramento. Copyright: Rich Pedroncelli/AP

Things are so bad with California’s financing of its public higher education that Harvard now costs less than Cal State East Bay for some students. This leaves students only one choice: to pack their bags and head to Cambridge in the fall.  But first, all they have to do is get accepted. While HarContinue Reading »

There’s no doubt that the ongoing crisis of governance in California and resulting disinvestment in the University of California system is deplorable. But this recent Washington Post dispatch from UC-Berkeley doesn’t exactly paint a picture of a campus in deep crisis:

Star faculty take mandatory furloughs. Classes grow perceptibly larger each year. Roofs leak; e-mail crashes.Continue Reading »