Editorial: Calif. needs better vision for higher education
Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the Oct. 18, 2013, Sacramento Bee.
In a report that should not sit on a shelf, the Little Hoover Commission this week urged Gov. Jerry Brown and legislators to devise a new master plan for higher education to meet anticipated demand for 2.3 million more college graduates within 12 years.
A revised master plan, completed 50 years after the first one, would make for an ideal undertaking for a governor whose father is identified with the expansion of California’s public colleges and universities.
As the commission sees it, California must envision higher education on a much greater level than it does now, embrace online education and create seamless transfers from community colleges to four-year institutions, all worthy notions.
The success of public colleges and universities is an economic development and a social justice issue. College must be kept affordable, though the public institutions should not count on large infusions of more public money, the commission said.