Word: reagan
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Kerr, probably sensing Reagan's vulnerability on this point, took advantage of public hostility to the governor by announcing last week that admissions to the university system would be halted temporarily, "until the financial picture is clarified." The chancellor of the eighteen state colleges had done the same thing the week before...
Meanwhile, other educators are stumping the state explaining what the suggested cutback would do to education. California residents understand very well that Reagan has suggested jettisoning a principle they have always taken for granted: the availability of free college education for their children. But administrators both in the universities and the state colleges are pointing out possible harms that probably never occur to the average Californian. The budget cut, they say, echoing Kerr, would preclude admitting any more students, although 10,000 more prospective students apply to the university each year; it might possibly dilute the quality of training...
Unafraid of sounding political, administrators like Murphy even point out that Reagan's ideas about economizing are fallacious. They argue that cutting the budget of the universities and state colleges would force them to limit enrollment and send the overflow to the state's community and junior colleges. Since these institutions get about three-fourths of their funds from the local communities, it would in the end be the local home owners--to whom Reagan has promised tax relief--who would be paying for added junior college costs...
Faced with such open opposition, Reagan has gone before the television cameras--his favorite medium--to try to clarify his proposals and capitalize on the hostility he knows exists toward the "Berkeley agitators." At one televised press conference, the governor said there were reasons other than the economic for charging tuition. Reagan believes it would be "good for students' mental attitudes" to pay, because "some who come to agitate, not to study" might have second thoughts about "noisy, disruptive, and shameful" demonstrations...
...What Reagan confronts at this point is the possibility of an early and bitter clash with the legislature over a retrenchment program that now seems unpopular. Even a man of his limited political experience must realize that such a run-in would probably poison any programs he might try to push through in the future...