Contingency and Transient America Part Three: Student Precarity
What Ever Happened to the California Master Plan for Higher Education?
By Geoff Johnson
One of the more overlooked heroes of California history is Dorothy Donohoe, one of the chief architects of the California Master Plan for Higher Education. Her story speaks to the why of an affordable and assessable California public higher education now becoming now becoming more tenuous.
Stricken with polio at a young age, and her family saddled with medical debt, Donohoe forwent college primarily to support her mother, finding work as a secretary, then becoming the registrar at Bakersfield High School, became actively involved in various local and statewide civic groups. In 1952, heeding her own advice that women get involved in political life, Donohoe ran for and was elected to the CA Assembly, serving from 1953 until her death in April of 1960. She was instrumental in authoring the resolution ACR 88 calling for the creation of California’s master, later resulting in George Miller’s Senate bill 33. The bill was passed on April 27th, 1960, but Donohoe, who had long suffered from chronic health issues, died on April 4th. The bill was renamed the Donohoe Higher Education act, and passed unanimously.
The bill led to the establishment of three higher ed systems, the UC, CSU, and California Community Colleges—supposedly to provide universal access based on ability, and a tuition-free education save for what were referred to as “incidental costs.” In 1965, a student could attend UCLA, live on campus, and enjoy a 20 meal pass for $1710 a year. Community Colleges remained free but for books and equipment until 1978, with the passage of Proposition 13.
One thing that came about in the 1960’s along with the push for student free speech rights at UC Berkeley was an influx of Black and Latino students. Seizing upon the conservative public discomfort in 1966, Ronald Reagan ran for governor on the pledge to “clean up that mess in Berkeley,” which he set out to do by proposing tuition, and a cut of 10% to state funding. In 1978, the passage of Prop 13 ended fee public higher ed in CA altogether.
In the decades since, costs have spiraled, and after years of inverse budget priorities, with prison funding rising while higher ed funding decreased, the California tax burden has been shifted from homeowners and, more significantly, large corporations, to the backs of parents and students in the form of tuition hikes that amounted to an increase of 472% between 1978 and 2024 for UC tuition, a dorm room, and a 20-meal plan—a 2460% increase from 1965.
I suspect Donohoe would be weeping just at this alone, but this is by no means the worst of it.
Though intended to create a three-tiered system which allowed for community college students, having demonstrated academic ability to transfer to the CSU and UC’s, the even more progressive countermeasures taken to help community college students succeed falls way short.
Needs-based financial aid is provided to both UC and CSU students, and for Community College Students, there is the College Promise Grant, which is intended to provide first-time and full-time college students with monies to effectively make community college tuition-free. Along with this are a smattering of other grants, though limited in nature, for the costs of child care, transportation, books or other expenses.
And just how well is this working out? In 2024 43% of UC undergraduate students suffered from food insecurity according to UC’s Basic Needs Annual Report. The number climbs to 62% among CSU students actually living on the CSU campus, according to a California Student Aid Report. As for California Community Colleges, Real College California in its 2023 survey of California Community College students found 66.6% or exactly 2/3rds of California Community College Students suffer from some sort of basic needs security, from food to housing.
One of the major problems here is that, for students going full-time, free tuition is not enough--the cost of books and housing is ever increasing, and being more or less required in most cases to attend school full-time limits student capacity to make up the needed income to survive.
This is particularly a problem for California Community College students. Over 2/3rds of California Community College students attend part-time, and are thus excluded from the California College Promise Grant. Ironically, most students, when asked why they only attend school part-time reply because they “can’t afford to go full-time.”
In fact, this part-time/full-time divide is something which sets community colleges apart form the CSU and UC’s. Only 22% of CSU students are part-time, and for the UC’s, such as UCLA, one must actually petition to acquire such status, and are then limited to three quarters. Not surprisingly, 95% of undergraduates are full-time.
Four-year undergraduate institutions like the CSU’s and UC’s, and more importantly Federal Student Aid programs, operate around a notion of a “true student” as taking at least 12 units and doing at least two hours of work outside the classroom, for a minimum of 36 hours/week. Effectively, the student is a worker.
Yet the irony is that students, particularly older students, often already have jobs, and in many cases families, and nowhere is this clearer than in California Community Colleges.
A deeper dive into the Real College California 2023 survey revealed that notably, food and housing insecurity was relatively evenly spread throughout the state with some slight exceptions. Where the numbers separate themselves more are in categories around ethnicity, sexuality, and gender identity, and if a student was part of the foster care system. Indigenous, Black, and Pacific Islander students were significantly above White and Latino students with regard to food insecurity. The highest rates of food insecurity were for ex-Foster Care, Transgender, Neuro-Divergent (Autistic), Justice-affected, or Single Parent students, who suffered food insecurity rates between approximately 70-80%. When it came to housing insecurity, Single-Parent, Justice-Affected, ex-Foster Care, and Military students reported housing insecurity rates between 75-90%.
Notably, the 67% of students interviewed in the survey were over 21, and 32% older than 30, significantly past the average age for traditional undergraduate students.
While statistics tying these groups to grades received were not given, there was a clearly established link between food and housing insecurity—the higher the rate of insecurity, the lower the grade.
One can strongly conclude few of these people will reach a CSU or UC, let alone complete a two-year degree.
When first instituted in 1960, California’s Master Plan for Higher Education led to the creation of an educated economic powerhouse that made it the sixth most powerful economy in the world. What future holds for California when a majority of its higher ed students are burdened by living with precarity, underfunding, and support?
Clearly, California Higher Ed needs to provide more support of part-time students, older students, and students who have for too long been pushed to the margins. It needs to extend tuition relief to all students, and it seriously needs to find ways to support students with housing and wrap-around services. Otherwise, one cannot will not be able to even call the results a “harvest of shame,” for the seeds will have never germinated.
Geoff Johnson is Southeast San Diego resident and a contingent professor of English and Humanities at San Diego Mesa and Southwestern Colleges. He is also President of the AFT Adjunct/Contingent Caucus, and organizer with the March in March, advocating for student affordability, access, academic freedom, and worker rights for all higher ed workers.