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Survey for a Master Plan for Higher Education in California, Review

Full Title:

A MASTER PLAN FOR HIGHER EDUCATION IN CALIFORNIA, 1960-1975: Prepared for the Liaison Committee of the State Board of Education and The Regents of the University of California

Excerpt:

The recommendations contained in the Master Plan for Higher Education are set forth in Chapter I of this publication. Some of the factors which brought about the passage of Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 88, the authority for this study, are presented in Chapter II. Among these were the rapidly mounting enrollments in the state’s institutions of higher education, the state’s financial outlook, and a growing concern that competition and unnecessary, wasteful duplication between the state colleges and the University of California might cost the taxpayers millions of dollars.

Governor Edmund G. Brown called a Special Session of the 1960 Legislature which considered recommendations in this report requiring legislative action. Appendix I gives a summary of these actions. The basic issue in the development of the Master Plan for Higher Education in California is the future role of the junior colleges, state colleges, and the University of California in the state’s tripartite system and how the three segments should be governed and co-ordinated so that unnecessary duplication will be avoided. This is not a new problem in California. As early as 1899, the California Educational Commission of 70 members was created to examine the state’s educational program. One of its recommendations called for “a uniform board for the governing of normal schools.” This recommendation was subsequently enacted into a law which placed the normal schools under the State Board of Education.

Preface

The recommendations contained in the Master Plan for Higher Education are set forth in Chapter I of this publication. Some of the factors which brought about the passage of Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 88, the authority for this study, are presented in Chapter II. Among these were the rapidly mounting enrollments in the state’s institutions of higher education, the state’s financial outlook, and a growing concern that competition and unnecessary, wasteful duplication between the state colleges and the University of California might cost the taxpayers millions of dollars.

Governor Edmund G. Brown called a Special Session of the 1960 Legislature which considered recommendations in this report requiring legislative action. Appendix I gives a summary of these actions.

The basic issue in the development of the Master Plan for Higher Education in California is the future role of the junior colleges, state colleges, and the University of California in the state’s tripartite system and how the three segments should be governed and co-ordinated so that unnecessary duplication will be avoided. This is not a new problem in California. As early as 1899, the California Educational Commission of 70 members was created to examine the state’s educational program. One of its recommendations called for “a uniform board for the governing of normal schools.” This recommendation was subsequently enacted into a law which placed the normal schools under the State Board of Education.

After careful consideration of this basic issue, the Master Plan Survey Team concluded that structure, function, and co-ordination were all so closely interrelated that they must be dealt with as a single problem. Moreover, the team concluded that the primary role of each of the three public segments and their relationship one with another were so basic to their orderly development that these roles and these relationships ought to be a part of the State Constitution. Accordingly, there is recommended the addition of a new section to Article IX of the Constitution which defines the primary role of each of the three public segments and the machinery for their coordination.

In addition to the constitutional amendment, the Master Plan Survey includes some 60 other recommendations relating to various aspects of higher education in the state, all designed to provide educational opportunity to qualified students at a minimum cost to the taxpayer.

The Master Plan Survey Team recognizes the great contribution private colleges and universities have made and will continue to make to the state. It has included these institutions in the recommended state-wide co-ordinating agency with the opportunity for an authentic voice bearing on policies directly affecting their welfare.

The Master Plan Survey Team believes in the validity of the recommendations of this report, which have been unanimously approved in principle by both The Regents of the University of California and the State Board of Education. If the recommendations are carried out and the Constitution amended as indicated, California’s tripartite system of public higher education, long admired by other states, will be saved from destruction by unbridled competition. If these actions now recommended are taken, California will again pioneer in the field of higher education, its system a model of cooperation for the whole nation.

JUNIOR COLLEGE SUPPORT

It is recommmended that:
1.Procedures be devised to assure that all funds allocated to and for junior colleges for current expense or for capital outlay by the state be expended only for junior college purposes, and further that the law be clarified to require that all funds received from county junior college tuition funds for use of buildings and equipment be expended solely for junior college purposes.

2.In view of the added local financial obligations, for both current expenses and capital outlay, which will result from the Master Plan Survey recommendations designed to divert to the junior colleges some 50,000 lower division students from the 1975 estimates for the state colleges and the University of California, and the attendant savings to the state resulting therefrom, the following actions be taken:

a. Procedures and methods be devised and adopted by the Legislature that will increase the proportion of total current support paid to the junior colleges from the State School Fund (augmented for this purpose) from
the approximately 30 percent now in effect to approximately 45 percent, to be achieved not later than 1975.

b. A continuing program be devised and adopted by the Legislature that would distribute construction funds, either through grants or loans or both, for capital outlay purposes annually to junior colleges as determined by growth, this program being for the purpose of assisting junior colleges to meet the facility needs of projected enrollments and of the students to be diverted to the junior colleges.

  1. All the territory of the state not now included within districts operating junior colleges be brought into junior college districts as rapidly as possible, so that all parts of the state can share in the operation, control, and support of junior colleges. Pending the achievement of this objective, means be devised to require areas that are not a part of a district operating a junior college to contribute to the support of junior college education at a rate or level that is more consistent with the contributions to junior college support presently made by areas included in districts that maintain junior colleges. In view of the added local financial obligations, for both current expenses and capital outlay, which will result from the Master Plan Survey recommendations designed to divert to the junior colleges some 50,000 lower division students from the 1975 estimates for the state colleges and the University of California, and the attendant savings to the state resulting therefrom, the following actions be taken: a. Procedures and methods be devised and adopted by the Legislature that will increase the proportion of total current support paid to the junior colleges from the State School Fund (augmented for this purpose) from the approximately 30 percent now in effect to approximately 45 percent,
    to be achieved not later than 1975.
Source Citation:

California Master Plan Survey Team. A Master Plan For Higher Education In California, 1960-1975: Prepared For the Liaison Committee of the State Board of Education and the Regents Of The University Of California. Report. Sacramento: California State Department Of Education. https://www.ucop.edu/acadinit/mastplan/MasterPlan1960.pdf

Cite this page:

California Master Plan Survey Team. 1960. "Survey for a Master Plan for Higher Education in California, Review." History of Higher Education. https://higheredhistory.gmu.edu/primary-sources/survey-for-a-master-plan-for-higher-education-in-california-review/