The San Bernardino County Sun has a good column on what the 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education tried to bring about:
It was a farsighted document that argued that the future economic well-being of California depended upon a well-educated work force. That would encourage business investment in the state, as well as drawing smart people. The list of benefits was long and as it turned out, prophetic.
Of course, those goals assume there won’t be a catastrophic economic collapse.