The California Master Plan: Sector Coordination
The original California Master Plan for Higher Education relied heavily on legislative language to coordinate between the tripartite system it codified. It created a weak coordinating board that was composed of three members representing the public and three each for the University of California, the California State Universities, and the California Community Colleges. It was tasked with reviewing annual budget requests, advising on the Master Plan’s provisions, and developing plans for orderly growth. In one of the most significant changes to the Master Plan in its entire 50 years, the state determined this weak coordinating board was too ineffectual, and in 1974 it created the California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC).
Formally CPEC’s mission is to, “assure the effective utilization of public postsecondary education resources, thereby eliminating waste and unnecessary duplication, and to promote diversity, innovation, and responsiveness to student and societal needs through planning and coordination,” but it has limited authority over any of the three systems or campuses. Pat Callan, one of the founders of Measuring Up and a former CPEC commissioner himself, has written that CPEC’s main influence comes from its extensive research and data gathering.
Ultimately, California’s higher education system has been “planned” by the strong tripartite boundaries established in 1960. Those have been wearing away over time. To show how little real coordination exists in
