Californians rate public colleges highly and back giving them more state dollars, survey shows

On December 8, 2016, the Los Angeles Times reported on a new statewide survey by the Public Policy Institute of California.  Here’s an excerpt:

Most Californians give high marks to their public universities and colleges but worry they are too expensive, according to a statewide survey released Thursday.

The majority of Californians surveyed by the Public Policy Institute of California support more money for public higher education, but they disagree over how to raise it. Three-fourths reject tuition increases — which are being considered for next year by the University of California and Cal State University — but a majority said they would back a statewide bond for construction projects. …

“How are we going to make sure Californians are going to afford the cost of higher education is first and foremost on people’s minds,” [Mark Baldassare, president of the San Francisco-based nonpartisan institute,] said. “There’s a strong belief that the state needs to invest more.”

Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed — spanning all political parties, race, ethnicities, incomes and education levels — said they believed that college costs prevent qualified and motivated young people from pursuing higher education and backed making community colleges tuition-free. An even greater share — 82% — supported more scholarships and grants for students. ….

Nearly all respondents to the survey agreed that higher education was important to California’s quality of life and economic vitality over the next two decades — though Democrats, African Americans, Latinos and Asians held those views more strongly than Republicans and whites.

Two-thirds of Californians said all three systems of public higher education were doing good or excellent jobs. They gave the UC and Cal State systems higher approval ratings than they got in a 2011 survey.

Read the complete article, “Californians rate public colleges highly and back giving them more state dollars, survey shows,” on the LA Times website.