The right answer is to remove or strictly limit tuition for public schools, as many countries do and as the US has in its own recent history.

During much of the 1960s (in the early years of the Master Plan for Higher Education in California, 1960-1975), the three public higher education systems in California – the University of California System (UC), the California State College System (CSUC), and the state’s community colleges – did not charge tuition for in-state residents. Yes, students paid some nominal (called “incidental”) fees. But tuition, we as think about it and know it today, was not an essential part of the financing plan for public higher education in California five decades ago.

The transition to student fees (a rose by any other name?) in the UC and CSUC systems began shortly after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as governor of California in 1967. As reported by the NY Times in 1982, Gov. Reagan “fought hard in the Legislature to impose tuition at four-year colleges.” He lost the battle for tuition, but the California Legislature “agreed to increase student registration fees, which [previously] had been nominal.” The official “no tuition” policy in California’s community colleges ended in 1982.