In the last 20 years, private gifts, grants and contracts have increasingly accounted for a larger portion of campus revenues. In 1990, private funds accounted for 7.7 percent of total campus funds, a percentage that jumped to 15.8 percent in 2007-08, according to data from the UC Berkeley Campus Budget Office.

And in fact, private funding from willing donors is the only ethical way to fund an education system—if the system isn’t paid for by its direct beneficiaries in its entirety.

As for what they propose to do with tax dollars stolen from the people, I can’t say I agree with their goal.

Yudof said the reduction in the state’s General Fund commitment, which totals almost $800 million for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 fiscal years, would place in jeopardy its historic commitment to provide access to all eligible high school graduates and would force UC to rely more heavily on higher student fees.

Why should UC, as a government institution, actively distort the labor market by giving diplomas those who neither deserve it or want it strongly enough? If there are too many people “eligible” for UC attendance—so many that after accounting for those who go out of state or go to private colleges, UC cannot accept those who want in (if it’s cheap)—then it probably means that the bar for “eligibility” is too low. After all, it’s an arbitrary bar set at an arbitrary percentage of GPA with no mechanism for self-correction. I would say lack of funding should play the role of that self-correcting mechanism. Is there not enough funding to accept expected student enrollment next year? Raise the bar now—so we are not changing the rules in the middle of the game, and we are not over-committing our system to those who shouldn’t have 4-year college education (or at least haven’t proven that the public should fund their education) anyway.

Raise the fees, and in fact, publish fee increase schedule for next 4 years, at a slight overestimation. Those to whom the education is worth it (and cannot pay out of pocket) can take out loans to get the education—their post-graduation salaries would presumably be worth it. If not, then they made stupid choice not dissimilar to running up a credit card debt.

Those to whom the education is not worth it will go into the society and be productive—until they feel that additional formal education is worth it, if ever.

No natural law of society says that every productive person has to have a college degree—in fact, some of the most successful people became successful after dropping out of Ph. D. program or even bachelor’s program.