Education Law

The Debate over Higher Education Costs in California

California's budget has reached crisis, and it is slouching toward catastrophe, by the looks of it.  At AERA last Spring, I learned that California's budget shortfall at that time was larger than the actual budgets of many of the other states.  Since then, the leaders of the state have engaged in all manner of cutting, slashing, and reorganizing to close the budget gap, but the leadership is substantially hamstrung by the state constitution's provisions limiting local property taxation and requiring a supermajority to pass a tax bill.  Thus, to shore up the state's higher education system, the most recently approved measure has been to greatly increase tuition in the UC system, such that, in the near future, one might have to pay as much as $60,000 per year to attend UC as an out-of-state law student.  Of course, if you are in-state, you get a break--it will only cost you $50,000 per year to attend law school at UC-Davis, for example, in 2012-13.  Remember, this is just tuition--not the whole bill. 

In response to this dire scenario, Michael O'Hare at The Reality Based Community has posted a very interesting and thought-provoking cost-benefit-based analysis of the question whether higher education should be subsidized by the state.  Check it out here. 

Full post as published by Edjurist on November 26, 2009 (boomark / email).