That's sickening. UC and Cal State systems need a major overhaul. - Spidra Webster

California budgets are a mess. When I was at UCLA in 1990s, tuitions tripled ($1,500/yr -> $4,500/yr) for in-state people because CA lost $10-20 billion. In the 2000s, tuitions again jumped massively. - Mitchell Tsai

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011... Students at California public universities could see their tuition and fees increase by 81 percent over the next four years, bringing in-state tuition to over $22,000 a year. - Mitchell Tsai

I was lucky to go to UC in the '80s. But even then I thought there were real problems. The system seems to use undergraduates as mere grist for a research mill. Research is important but the direction of a lot of what UC does is directed by for-profit businesses. They get the spoils, the taxpayer gets the bill, and the children of the taxpayers of California who the universities are for don't get the affordable quality education that was the whole point of the system. Yes, the CA legislature has made everything worse by creating budget gridlock damned near every year, but the priorities had become screwed up even before that. - Spidra Webster

UCLA 2012 Tuition, Room & Board, Fees is $31,902 (in-state), $54,780 (out-of-state). http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospec... See picture at http://forbestadvice.com/Educati... $1,680 (1990 in-state tuition, I remember $500/quarter=$1,500) --> $12,686 (2012 in-state tuition) - Mitchell Tsai

i misread "Regents" as "Regrets". too bad i got it wrong. - Big Joe Silenced

College costs have been rising crazily. In 1947, Harvard Tuition was $400 ($4,000 in 2012 dollars). http://kwharbaugh.blogspot.com/2005... ...and back then 1/2 the people who applied were admitted (now it's 1 out of 16). Once upon a time (pre-1930s), everyone who applied to Harvard who met their minimum standards was accepted. There was no class size maximum. - Mitchell Tsai

The Mercury News article referenced has a lot more interesting info: http://www.mercurynews.com/breakin... - Brian Johns

Saw a recent article where Harvard's average student pays ~$10,000. In the 1990s, friends would register for Cal State for 1-2 years, get in-state residency, and then transfer to UCLA ($1,500/yr for undergrad, grad, or medical school. I think Law & Business were more.) Back then many transfer students thought a $20,000/yr out-of-state UCLA tuition was too expensive. - Mitchell Tsai

See this UC Budget article. http://ff.im/1bba9x 74% of the $20.1 billion 2009-10 budget is non-instruction-related. IMO university expenses are high due to status wars with other universities. It's like the federal government's Social Security, Medicare, and War problems (Those three aspects are consuming soooo much of our government budget now). - Mitchell Tsai

...blast from the past... http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate... The Master Plan noted that “expenditures for higher education have more than tripled during the decade 1948-49 through 1957-58,” and its authors were concerned about the public cost of a high-quality higher education system. .. - Mitchell Tsai