Featured Researcher

Hans Johnson

Fifty years ago, California adopted the Master Plan for Higher Education. What has it achieved?

The master plan provided a path to college for California high school graduates, with the top graduates eligible for either the University of California or the California State University systems, and all high school graduates eligible for community college. Its key tenets were access, affordability, equity, and quality. It led to a tremendous increase in the college-going population between 1960 and 2000, and to the development of arguably the best public system of higher education in the world.

Where does it fall short today?

It was a visionary document at the time but was only meant to be a guide for 15 years. Today, the Master Plan for Higher Education is backward-looking. For example, it allows for the top one-third of high school graduates to be eligible for UC or CSU. That was an ambitious goal in 1960, when just one in 10 workers in California had a college degree. But today’s economy is very different, requiring far more college graduates, and yet the Master Plan targets have not changed in 50 years.

This is an urgent issue at a time when our economic projections show that California is not producing enough college graduates to meet the demands of its future economy. The state needs to modify the Master Plan to help meet the challenges of the 21st century.

What parts of the plan should be revisited so that it is more responsive to 21st-century realities?

At PPIC, we will be re-examining the tenets and goals of the Master Plan in light of California’s future needs. Should we increase the percentage of high school students eligible for UC or CSU? How do we ensure that these students complete college?

We’ll look at the divisions of responsibility among the college systems. In some states, community colleges offer applied bachelor’s degrees, which are tied to specific vocations, like nursing. CSUs are eager to offer more graduate degrees. We’ll look at the implications of making these kinds of changes in California.

It’s also important to consider the issues of access and affordability. State support for financially needy students has declined, and students today pay a higher share of college costs. The federal government appears to be stepping up with a proposal to expand Pell Grants. While California’s fiscal emergency means that cuts are likely, the bottom line is that we’re currently moving in the wrong direction if we want to make college possible for more high school graduates.

What parts of the plan should be preserved?

The Master Plan answered the question, “What kind of state do we want to be?” It’s an important question for us to ask again, even in these tough economic times. The plan anticipated and provided for many, many students to earn a high-quality, affordable college education. These aspects have served us well, and they need to be preserved—and strengthened—if we are to meet the challenges of the future.