ABSTRACT

Higher education is the one institution in American life that can elevate the children of those left behind for greater common good. Critics like to claim that the demonstrated lack of need must mean that much of the original funding was wasted. The state must reveal to the public that higher education is in crisis and needs to be reinvigorated. If a broad public consensus that public higher education should be reinvigorated forms, then the step is to re-look at the California Master Plan for Higher Education. A statement of what constitutes quality education needs to be written into revised Master Plan. State budget decision-makers, corporate investors, and former public, soon-to-be-private higher education administrators will all say that students are better educated and better prepared for work in the new system. A new start and great future for public higher education will require renewed public support for much higher levels of funding, free from non-transparent political agendas such as privatization.