Resurrecting California’s Public Universities - NY Times Editorial

Even before the recession hit, the public colleges and universities that educate more than 70 percent of the nation’s students were suffering from dwindling state revenue. Their response, not surprisingly, was to raise tuition, slash course offerings and, in some cases, freeze or even reduce student enrollment. The damage was acute in California, whose once-glorious system of higher education effectively cannibalized itself, shutting out a growing number of well-qualified students. The same California State Legislature that cut the higher education budget to ribbons, while spending ever larger sums on prisons, now proposes to magically set things right by requiring public colleges and universities to offer more online courses....Online classes are and will be part of the educational mix, in California and elsewhere. But they cannot be counted on to revive a beleaguered public system whose mission is to educate a great many freshmen who need close instruction and human contact to succeed. To broaden access and preserve what is left of the public university, California lawmakers will need to change budget priorities that have been moving in the wrong direction for a long time. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/opinion/sunday/resurrecting-californias-public-universities.html?_r=0