<story><title>A summer job paid tuition back in ’81, but then we got cheap</title><url>http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2021250505_westneat23xml.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>calinet6</author><text>Robert Birgeneau, the chancellor emeritus of Berkeley, spoke at a fundraising event I attended and said something I thought was poignant:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The University of California has gone from being a state-funded institution, to a state-sponsored institution, to a state-&lt;i&gt;located&lt;/i&gt; institution.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The level at which the State of California funds the university is practically nothing at this point. Alumni donations have filled &lt;i&gt;some&lt;/i&gt; gaps but don&amp;#x27;t nearly cover everything. Tuition has increased to the point where even I, who graduated in 2006, consider it ridiculous. It is now over 8 times the maximum semester tuition I paid.&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t imagine considering Berkeley a &amp;quot;great value&amp;quot; anymore, as I did when I was there considering the (excellent) quality of education versus the price. It used to be a sense of pride; that a public university could be so great, to prove the experiment, to show that society could produce academic excellence without falling to the vices of money and the divisions that come with it. Now that experiment has failed, and only those who believe in it strongly—the Alumni and supporters—are upholding it, but that&amp;#x27;s not sustainable.&lt;p&gt;We need to grow up. This fantasy of American individualism is killing us. We need to grow up and learn how to share—and this is the worst part: &lt;i&gt;as we once did.&lt;/i&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>A summer job paid tuition back in ’81, but then we got cheap</title><url>http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2021250505_westneat23xml.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>meddlepal</author><text>Sort of. The cost of higher-education skyrocketed when the government got involved in the student loan business. It became easy to get loans for higher-education and then tuition skyrocketed with the suddenly available capital.&lt;p&gt;There other contributing factors as well; for example, the rise of the ridiculous requirement to have a college degree to get anything close to a decent job these days has created tremendous demand for degrees and allowed colleges and universities to raise tuition into the stratosphere.</text></comment>