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I place less blame on taxpayers and more blame on exploding administration costs. On other hand, my alma matter - University of California system - cost $4500

I place less blame on taxpayers and more blame on exploding administration costs. On other hand, my alma matter - University of California system - cost $4500 per year in in-state tuition alone when I graduated in 2000 when minimum wage here was around $5 and it’s under $15000 today when minimum wage is $15.50 So it appears that people in California do support public education fairly consistently. This is one of the positive outcomes of crazy taxation regime we have here. I am of course ignoring the 800lb gorilla of college affordability - housing costs. Those are craZy here in Nimbyland

giantg2 2y ago
I think CA public funding "dropped" from 30ish% in the 70s to 15ish% more recently. However, enrollment and costs have gone way up. The only way to keep it up is to increase revenues, decrease cost, or cap enrollment. None of those have much support. So the increased cost goes to the student.
riku_iki 2y ago
Base on this figure, the main business lines of UC today are hospitals and sales: https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2023/4684/4684-fig1.png https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2023/4684/4684-fig1.png
- vladgur 2y ago
  Great, at least our insane medical costs are contributing to something positive :( * this comment was sponsored by $7 aspirin pill and a $3000 knee brace(sold on Amazon for $400)
- jasomill 2y ago
  "Sales and Services" in this context presumably include things like transportation, housing, and dining, often covered by the same funding sources as tuition and fees, that represent a significant portion of a student's total cost. For example, the cheapest on-campus meal plan at UC Berkeley is $6,260 per academic year[1] for 12 dining hall meals a week plus a $600/semester in credit for other food[2], and ($6,260 - $1,200)/(8 * 4 weeks) = $158.13/week for 1.7 meals a day seems steep for dorm food, especially if we also assume $600/semester is sufficient to cover the remaining 9 meals, given that $1,200/(8 * 4 * 9 meals) = $4.17/meal. On an annualized academic year basis, this is $6,260 - $4.17 * 8 * 4 * 7 * 3 = $3,457.76 less than the cost of the meal plan. And while dining out in Berkeley at $4/meal is unrealistic, living on $100/week of groceries as a non-student is not[3], so $3,000/year seems like a reasonable figure for the net food cost of an on-campus UC Berkeley academic year. [1] https://housing.berkeley.edu/rates-contracts-policies/rates/ https://housing.berkeley.edu/rates-contracts-policies/rates/ [2] https://dining.berkeley.edu/meal-plans/2024-2025/living-on-campus/ https://dining.berkeley.edu/meal-plans/2024-2025/living-on-c... [3] Source: I can eat frugally but well on $10/day in Indianapolis, and both random Web sites and official government statistics both suggest bay area grocery prices are roughly 25% higher.
drewg123 2y ago
That's interesting. So UC was 2x as expensive in 2000 than SUNY was in 1990. That made me go dig up the fee schedule at https://www.ucop.edu/operating-budget/_files/fees/201415/documents/Historical_Fee_Levels.pdf https://www.ucop.edu/operating-budget/_files/fees/201415/doc... From that page, it looks like in 1990 the UC tuition was $864/semseter, and the min. wage was $3.80/hr. So it was roughly the same affordability as the SUNY system at that time (except for the gigantic UC student services fee that was more than tuition -- we didn't have that, and kept voting against D1 athletics to keep it that way). Going the other way, SUNY tuition was $3,400 and the min wage was $5.15 in 2000. That puts us 1/2 way to the rates we have today. So something clearly happened in the 1990s that raised tuition in multiple states. You can see that in the (SUNY) chart here (https://www.buffalo.edu/provost/oia/facts-publications/factbook/institutional-data/tuition-and-fees.html https://www.buffalo.edu/provost/oia/facts-publications/factb...) where there were 2 huge tuition increases (over 25% each) in the 1990s.

giantg2 2y ago

I think CA public funding "dropped" from 30ish% in the 70s to 15ish% more recently. However, enrollment and costs have gone way up. The only way to keep it up is to increase revenues, decrease cost, or cap enrollment. None of those have much support. So the increased cost goes to the student.

riku_iki 2y ago

Base on this figure, the main business lines of UC today are hospitals and sales: https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2023/4684/4684-fig1.png https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2023/4684/4684-fig1.png

vladgur 2y ago
Great, at least our insane medical costs are contributing to something positive :( * this comment was sponsored by $7 aspirin pill and a $3000 knee brace(sold on Amazon for $400)
jasomill 2y ago
"Sales and Services" in this context presumably include things like transportation, housing, and dining, often covered by the same funding sources as tuition and fees, that represent a significant portion of a student's total cost. For example, the cheapest on-campus meal plan at UC Berkeley is $6,260 per academic year[1] for 12 dining hall meals a week plus a $600/semester in credit for other food[2], and ($6,260 - $1,200)/(8 * 4 weeks) = $158.13/week for 1.7 meals a day seems steep for dorm food, especially if we also assume $600/semester is sufficient to cover the remaining 9 meals, given that $1,200/(8 * 4 * 9 meals) = $4.17/meal. On an annualized academic year basis, this is $6,260 - $4.17 * 8 * 4 * 7 * 3 = $3,457.76 less than the cost of the meal plan. And while dining out in Berkeley at $4/meal is unrealistic, living on $100/week of groceries as a non-student is not[3], so $3,000/year seems like a reasonable figure for the net food cost of an on-campus UC Berkeley academic year. [1] https://housing.berkeley.edu/rates-contracts-policies/rates/ https://housing.berkeley.edu/rates-contracts-policies/rates/ [2] https://dining.berkeley.edu/meal-plans/2024-2025/living-on-campus/ https://dining.berkeley.edu/meal-plans/2024-2025/living-on-c... [3] Source: I can eat frugally but well on $10/day in Indianapolis, and both random Web sites and official government statistics both suggest bay area grocery prices are roughly 25% higher.

drewg123 2y ago

That's interesting. So UC was 2x as expensive in 2000 than SUNY was in 1990. That made me go dig up the fee schedule at https://www.ucop.edu/operating-budget/_files/fees/201415/documents/Historical_Fee_Levels.pdf https://www.ucop.edu/operating-budget/_files/fees/201415/doc... From that page, it looks like in 1990 the UC tuition was $864/semseter, and the min. wage was $3.80/hr. So it was roughly the same affordability as the SUNY system at that time (except for the gigantic UC student services fee that was more than tuition -- we didn't have that, and kept voting against D1 athletics to keep it that way). Going the other way, SUNY tuition was $3,400 and the min wage was $5.15 in 2000. That puts us 1/2 way to the rates we have today. So something clearly happened in the 1990s that raised tuition in multiple states. You can see that in the (SUNY) chart here (https://www.buffalo.edu/provost/oia/facts-publications/factbook/institutional-data/tuition-and-fees.html https://www.buffalo.edu/provost/oia/facts-publications/factb...) where there were 2 huge tuition increases (over 25% each) in the 1990s.