Well, they did it. The University of California–perhaps the best public system in the world, give or take that of the UK–raised tuition for next year by a pretty shocking 32%.
It’s hard to say anything new about this–it’s a generally tragic event, and, along with budget cuts, stands to do permanent damage to the system. Top-tier professors are, I gather, already grumbling about moving on.
I would indicate only that at least this is getting attention. The comparably slower decline of Canadian public universities into massive classes, lower standards, and almost no face time between professors and undergrads (an important thing, some bizarre arguments notwithstanding), is pretty dead as a public issue here. Yes, student walk out once a year (about two weeks ago, I think), and that probably gets some prefunctory press, but that’s about it.
If you set out to kill the system slow enough, in other words, no one sees you coming.