According to an article in California’s Capitol Weekly, the Golden State plans to draft a new Master Plan for higher education
Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, D-Redwood City, will convene the first hearing of The Joint Committee for Review of the Master Plan on Higher Education at the Capitol. The day-long session will include a good deal of background testimony from experts on that plan. Over the next four months, the Committee will meet four more times as it tries to map out a system capable of meeting the state’s future needs.
The state’s higher education system is now largely a creation of the state’s original Master Plan, from 1960. The Master Plan fails to account for the increasing number of people in the state and, according to the article:
Economists say the state is already running short on the skilled college graduates needed to keep the economy running, with the deficit likely to grow in coming years. The new plan may focus on how to do more with less—though Ruskin also notes that the original master plan didn’t take on some recently-controversial expenses, such as high salaries for UC Regents.
There is no word yet on whether or not the new master plan will tackle the other interesting component of the state’s original Master Plan, the promise of free tuition for all California students.
Probably not.
