>But as for the need for more money, this happened when conservatives were taking over one state house after another, and a large part of their agenda was cutti

>But as for the need for more money, this happened when conservatives were taking over one state house after another, and a large part of their agenda was cutting state budgets, and one happy consequence of this, from their perspective, is that it forced public universities to become much more like corporations. And when this happened, they did nothing to stop it, and just sat back and smiled. It's worth noting that Governor Reagan was one of the first to take this path. He actually introduced tuition to the UC system just for "hippie-punching" the folks at Berkeley.