Skip to footer

How to fix California's college tuition problem

California residents are frustrated over the UC university system's uniform pricing. Would it be better if each campus set its own tuition rates?

|
Reed Saxon/AP/File
A protester stands outside a teleconference meeting of the Board of Regents regents of the University of California, on the campus at UCLA in this November 2011 file photo. All nine UC campuses have the same tuition rates.

Students want an excellent education and low tuition but a "free lunch" is hard to find during these tough times.  The LA Times has some choice quotes over the pain and frustration playing out in California.  As I understand it, all nine UC Campuses charge the same tuition prices.  This is the problem.  

I suggest that each UC campus be allowed to set its own tuition and that the rules are such that 10% of the collected revenue is redistributed from the top 4 schools in terms of tuition is sent to the 5 campuses that charge less.   If the UC feels innovative, it could charge different tuition prices by campus and by major.  Such customization of tuition would generate more revenue, offer students more financing options.    One definition of discrimination is to treat different UC campuses the same.

While people moan about rising UC tuition, they forget that the UC is much cheaper than Ivy League schools (our peers!) and that many students transfer into the UC from a community college.  This means that their effective tuition is roughly 30% lower because the formula (assuming an interest rate of 0%) becomes  .5*community college tuition + .5*UC in-state tuition.  

Switching subjects:   I would like to show my appreciation to my uncountable number of blog readers by revealing my blog royalties for the last 3 months.

Publication:
Environmental and Urban Economics
Earnings This Reporting Period:
$28.30
So, over the course of 3 months I post around 100 entries. If it takes me 10 minutes to write each of these then that's 1000 minutes or roughly 16 hours so $28/16 = $1.6 an hour  ---- not bad for a big bad full prof at UCLA?

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to How to fix California's college tuition problem
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Green-Economics/2012/0122/How-to-fix-California-s-college-tuition-problem
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe