Letters to the Editor: This is how easy and cheap attending a UC school once was
To the editor: I am a University of California system graduate, class of 1972. As a first-year student in 1968, I paid $105 per quarter plus books to attend. That modest amount covered some miscellaneous student fees and included campus health insurance. (“UC and CSU are unaffordable, and a 4-year degree isn’t the only way to succeed, Californians say in poll,†May 9)
I do not recall any significant competition for admission to any of the UC campuses. When I inquired about transferring to UC Berkeley, I was given a card to fill out. All I had to do was sign it and show up at the start of the next quarter.
Meanwhile, I paid $75 per month to share a nice two-bedroom apartment. I took out a $2,000 loan my third year in school to ensure a cash reserve and help establish good credit for the future. That loan was paid back within a year of graduating.
I look back on this as a time of affordable abundance. It is painful to see living in California becoming so much more expensive, with a lot less in return.
I pity the students trapped in a system that was once designed for essentially free access for all California students with good grades. This is a system that feasts at the trough of out-of-state tuition and deep-pocketed foreign students.
Enrollment in a state public university should be barred to non-state residents until every California student has been served first. And then, can we move back to what was “free†higher education, funded by our record budget surplus?
Ralph Jones, Riverside
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To the editor: The article reporting that most Californians now see attending the state’s public university systems as unaffordable was informative and a bit disconcerting.
The focus was exclusively on whether people believed a four-year degree to be useful “to achieve better economic opportunities.†I never had the slightest sense that I would have a hard time finding a job, partly because I would do anything.
After I graduated high school, I got a job in a factory in East L.A. where I learned to drive a forklift and to weld. But I could not wait to start college — not to make more money, but to learn about science, history, politics and economics.
I suggest that you explore the extent to which curiosity should be a sufficient reason to attend a university. I’ll bet that lifelong curiosity about literature, language and ethics might actually lead to a more satisfying life and even a decent income.
Jim Mamer, San Diego
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To the editor: At 76 I don’t remember a lot of things, but I do remember my mother saying when I was in middle school that we were so lucky to live in California, because Gov. Pat Brown just made it so that every child in this state can get a college education.
I paid a few hundred dollars per year to attend UCLA and UC Berkeley. I taught high school for 40 years, an immensely rewarding (if not particularly lucrative) career.
The current lack of respect and support for public education is horrifying. I fear it foreshadows the demise of our democracy, which requires well-educated voters.
Kris Evans, Laguna Beach
