zlacker

>>pessim+(OP)
This idea is not really new - the California Master Plan for Education essentially promised a free higher education to everyone in California. In 1960. [1]

As these things go, the plan was eroded over time, with the (in)famous Proposition 13 of 1978 dealing a big blow.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Master_Plan_for_Hig...

>>xmddmx+Bo
They implemented a great component of those ideas. Seems like cause for at least some celebration, right? :)

>>ajju+Rp
I'm an educator, and a social democrat (approximately) so "yes"?

What saddens me is that grand (and simple) plan "free education for all" gets watered down and chipped away to "free education for those who have money or connections" and later attempts to shore it up offten amount to "free education for $special_group". While I don't deny $special_group should get free education, what gets me is all the special-pleading going on.

In OOM programming terms, it's like we had a universal principle which was easy to implement, and this has now been replaced by a bunch of switch/case statements...

>>xmddmx+ar
I understand and empathize, but you also realize that college in the 60's and in the 2020's are completely different beasts no, right? The genie is out of the lamp, but we literally don't have the room to stuff it back in. CA's population has tripled in 60 years, and high school graduation rates have risen signifigantly (which is of course good). There are more students competing for university today than there were people in 60's california.

Thankfully not all of them are trying to apply specifically to UCLA or even in state, but the numbers are staggering.

>>johnny+ft
> CA's population has tripled in 60 years

and so has the tax base and # of teachers. This is a non-issue. Society scales.

> and high school graduation rates have risen signifigantly (which is of course good).

Not necessarily : see my comment below.

>>xmddmx+by
Even if teachers have (which I'm not convinced of to begin with), Universities and land haven't. Its no secret that we've had an overpopulation crisis for the past few decades as is, so We haven't fully solved that issue as of now.

And I'm equally unsure if taxes have tripled, between increasing poverty on the bottom and more and more tax evasion on top.

>>johnny+3B
I'm sure if we built new universities, there would be plenty of applicants to teach it in, given how fierce the competition for academic positions already is.

If capacity at existing colleges is the problem, we could start new ones.

>>rdevsr+cE
Where exactly would you propose building them? A competitive university is going to require around 2,000 acres of land. Where are you going to find that in today's California? No doubt there is plenty of open space left, but it's not in very desirable areas.

>>User23+lT
The university does not need to be whole separated city nor include amusement park and catering.

It can be an institution integrated into a city.

>>watwut+P01
Supposing that’s true for the sake of argument: Where?

>>User23+622
Take a random hotel and make a uni out of it?

>>action+s44
That doesn’t sound like it’s going to attract quality faculty.