PPIC’s New Survey on Higher Education: What It Didn’t Ask
By Peter Schrag
The most interesting things about the latest survey of Californians’ views about the state’s system of higher education are the issues it didn’t address.
The survey, conducted by PPIC, the Public Policy Institute of California and released last week, found – again – that a great majority of us believed that the state was underfunding its public colleges and universities. But – again, again – it also found that they weren’t willing to pay higher taxes or approve of higher tuition to make up for it. So what else is new?
PPIC pollsters didn’t make clear to those it questioned that while all the attention was going to the rising tuition at the University of California and the California State University (CSU), fees at the state’s community colleges, though also rising, are still the lowest in the country and that low income students get waivers for all fees. It made no distinction among the tuition and fees charged by the three segments.