Could California Offer Debt-Free College?
The raison d'être of the University of California, Cal State University and community college systems is to give anyone a shot at a degree. But the cost of attending UC schools has tripled in 20 years, during which time the flow of state tax dollars to higher education has slowed.
The Master Plan for Higher Education, adopted in the postwar golden year of 1960, reaffirmed California's "commitment to the principle of tuition-free education to residents of the state," according to a summary. A generation later, in 1978, Californians began to pull the plug on financing education, a result of the property tax cap known as Proposition 13. And now it costs more than the median individual income in L.A. County ($28,337) to send a child off to UCLA (at least $32,583).
Student debt has been a hot topic lately, and then–presidential candidate Bernie Sanders made it even hotter last year when he proposed tuition-free college. This week, the effort to lower the cost burden for students continued as members of the state Assembly budget and higher education committees announced "Degrees Not Debt" legislation. The proposal would give students one year of free community college, preserve so-called Middle Class Scholarships and provide resources for students' living costs, which often can outweigh tuition and fees in housing-crisis markets like Los Angeles.
"This goes beyond tuition and fees by moving the conversation forward, taking into consideration unmet needs such as living expenses, room and board and transportation," says Lupita Cortez Alcalá, executive director of the California Student Aid Commission, the state's student financial aid agency.
Read more: http://www.laweekly.com/news/california-legislators-proposed-debt-free-college-8023496