BLAINE H. MOGIL
PRIDE STAFF WRITER

In 1960, the California State Department of Education drafted a 230-page, 15-year master plan for the University of California, California State College (later CSU) and community college systems with the goal of saving the state’s higher education system from “destruction by unbridled competition.”

At the time, those heady words referred to the competition between the three upper education systems. But with today’s tuition costs rising rapidly at the UC and CSU campuses, the Department of Education should be more concerned about competition from colleges outside the state-supported systems than any internal threat.

At a meeting of the UC Regents, Sept. 13-15, in San Francisco, a budget proposed by UC leaders would raise tuition fees by 8 percent to 16 percent for each of the next four years.

If this budget is approved, annual tuition for UC students could soar north of $22,000 by fall 2015. With continued annual hikes, students entering the system that year could expect the cost of their diploma to exceed $100,000, which begs the question: Which education would you choose for $100,000?

Take a look at the table above, and the options might just surprise you. With the state university education system on the verge of becoming more expensive than a world-class school such as the University of Cambridge, the value of a state-supported education vanishes.

The CSU Chancellor’s office is well aware of the affordability problem. The CSU system has been forced to raise tuition by 22 percent in the past year because of cuts in state funding, and more cuts may be on the way in 2012.

While the price hikes for CSU students have been widely reported, one statistic that has gone largely unnoticed is an analysis that for every $1 invested by the state in the higher education system, $16 in revenue is produced for the state, according to Erik Fallis with the CSU Chancellor’s office.

There isn’t an economist alive who wouldn’t make a 16-to-1 return on investment a top priority in any budget decision. Unfortunately, politicians make the state budget, not economists.

Fallis said the Chancellor’s office has little, if any, political capital to lobby the state for money because it’s required by its charter to remain neutral. Although the office sympathizes with students who are overburdened by tuition costs, the most it can do is make budget recommendations and hope for the best.

Until elected officials in Sacramento act on behalf of the citizens of the state and the welfare of the state itself, the financial woes of the CSU and UC system will only get worse.

The real threat to the state higher education system today is competition from private institutions around the globe that better understand the value proposition, and are positioning themselves to acquire California’s finest students.