Kevin Drum on the 32% rise in student fees approved by UC Regents.
The chart … shows an almost ghostly parallel: adjusted for inflation, UC tuition has gone up 5x since 1980. During the same period, spending on corrections has also gone up 5x. As we spend ever more on warehousing prisoners, we’re forced to make students pay ever more for their education. The two lines track almost exactly.
We used to have the world’s greatest system of higher education and we thrived. Now we have the world’s biggest system of penal institutions and we’re broke. That’s the decision Californians have made over the past 30 years: more prisons and better paid prison guards, but lower taxes and less education. (And not just higher education, either.) It’s hard to think of a stupider allocation of resources. But hey — at least our property taxes are capped! Hooray!
The Edge of the American West 
11 comments
November 20, 2009 at 10:19 am
stevenattewell
Call me an optimist, but I would like to learn more about what happened in (looks like somewhere around 95? This graph is somewhat hard to read) when tuition dipped. What went right then that could potentially be replicated in the future?
November 20, 2009 at 11:34 am
AaLD
Sadly, it appears that the generations that benefitted most from the state investment in education (including mine), have turned out to be incredibly selfish, and unwilling to give the next generations the benefits our elders gave us. I don’t see any real change until a younger, less-white generation of voters starts paying attention and returns the state to its former, more progressive course.
November 20, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Ben Alpers
Californians have made plenty of stupid decisions, some of them unique to California. But the stupid decision to dramatically expand the penal system seems to have been made simultaneously around the country. As late as the early ’70s, the US level of incarceration was pretty typical of an industrialized democracy. Thereafter it became dramatically higher. And of course that’s expensive. Has any state bucked this trend?
November 20, 2009 at 5:26 pm
David in San Jose
The people of California also voted to prohibit social services to illegal immigrants. Maybe if the education system would be in better shape if the government had respected the wishes of the people.
November 20, 2009 at 5:35 pm
kathy a.
the power of california’s prison guard union really cannot be overstated.
November 20, 2009 at 6:09 pm
PorJ
I really can’t get my head around a 32% increase in *this* economy. I know its basically the only solution, but the obvious question is: what next?
I’m viewing California from the opposite extreme on the continental USA, and our state is going through a mid-cycle budget recession of tremendous proportions. Higher ed is going to be hit very, very hard. But here’s the problem: what’s the solution for next year (fiscal 2011, starting July 1, 2010) or 2012? The budgeting scenarios I’ve seen discussed are incredibly pie-in-the-sky in terms of revenue generation. If those forecasts don’t materialize (and you can see how devastated New York State was by such poor forecasting), then the whole thing just goes off the cliff…. Again…. And again….
Can you raise tuition 32% for three straight years?
It seems like the stimulus simply extended the plank out over the canyon, but pretty soon we’re going to actually see a true, definitional depression. It’ll be like the 1930s, with depression scrip showing up everywhere….
November 20, 2009 at 6:10 pm
PorJ
correction: I meant “mid-cycle budget rescission”
November 20, 2009 at 10:26 pm
andrew
I’m always shocked to see what the UC
tuitionstudent fees are, and now even more shocked. I was in what appears to have been a very lucky 1994-1998 group.November 22, 2009 at 8:27 am
sburnap
I hereby rescind all my tuition complaints for my time (’83-’87) at UCSD. I didn’t realize at the time how bad the next generation would have it.
I mostly worked my way through college and graduated with minimal student loans. (~$2500) It was hard then, and only possible through well paying engineering jobs. That’s just not possible now, from what I can see. That’s incredibly sad. We’re saddling people with massive debt before they even enter the workforce.
November 22, 2009 at 5:17 pm
kathy a.
sburnap, i also worked through school and graduated college with very little in loans, and graduated law school at UC hastings in ’82 with a manageable amount to be paid off over 10 years. [at something ridiculous like 3% interest.] that is not possible now.
November 23, 2009 at 5:30 am
another ben
stevenattewell: I’m just spitballing, but maybe prison funding is pegged to a tax somehow proportional to statewide incomes, whereas student fees are a set amount. If the regents at the time were reluctant to keep pegging fees to inflation, there would have been a divergence in real dollars. If the income gains of the dot-com bubble were concentrated into a relatively small slice of the CA populace, and the regents were of good conscience, I can imagine such a situation.
Then again, I’m just making something up. It would be interesting to see that graph with annual plotted points.