Free tuition at public colleges and universities — it’s a rallying cry in Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, and it sounds like an effective strategy for ensuring that the widest range of students can graduate from college without burdensome debt. But zero tuition actually runs counter to Sanders’ core principle of reducing income inequality. In this … Continue reading »
tuition
Higher education: Should college be free for all?
Should college be free for all? Bernie Sanders thinks so. So did John Adams. “The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must be willing to bear the expense of it,” Adams argued. That belief motivated the establishment of land grant colleges, in the 1862 Morrill Act, “to promote … Continue reading »
Which University?
As I start this post, I hear voices on bullhorns in Sproul Plaza (ground zero for the Free Speech demonstrations 50 years ago) calling Berkeley students to walk out of classes today (Nov. 24) to protest the tuition increases approved last week by the University of California Regents for the entire ten-campus system. Many details … Continue reading »
UC Student Regent: Why I say ‘no’ to the tuition plan
My mentors always advised me that I should pursue whatever issues kept me up at night. The night before the UC Regents’ recent vote on a proposed tuition increase, I thought long and hard about what I would say at the Regents’ meeting. Here is my statement concerning the tuition hikes: During my sophomore year … Continue reading »
A Supreme Ruling: more than 41,000 winners
Yesterday, the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a California judge’s ruling last year on a California state policy that treats graduates of California high schools as residents for the purposes of tuition, regardless of their immigration status. The immediate beneficiaries of their order dismissing the appeal, according to the LA Times, … Continue reading »