As for fees, you need a house, you need to eat, whether or not you go to college.

True, but if you are a student you need time to attend classes and to study for those classes. Too much time spent working defeats the purpose of attending college by resulting in poor grades and employment prospects for many.

For UCLA the numbers come from their web site.

For the University of Arizona the numbers are from here.

All of these things could be fixed by taxing those who have the money: the wealthy and the big financial institutions. But we have just been through forty years of public instruction in Neo-Classical Economics that has succeeded in teaching a majority that it is not really possible to tax the wealthy. Over 90% of all US graduates with one or more degrees in economics believe this. NCE is the language in which they express their thoughts, the air they breathe.

Of course it is all self serving bull shit, but try and explain that to a majority of the population. That is our task. You are one of those for whom the spell has been broken.

As for the cost of public education, the University of California and the California State University systems were enormous bargains when our son was attending. He lived at home while obtaining both his bachelor's and master's degrees and left school without debt. In order to do that today I would first have to find work in California, and school construction has virtually collapsed in the last two years.

Having hamstrung themselves by allowing the creation of requirements for super-majorities in the state legislature for budgets, the only way the State of California has been able to respond to the dramatic drop in state revenues is to transfer more and more of the cost of education at state universities to the students.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."