Blogs:

There was a time when public universities of California were well known across the globe. A unique law was passed in the year 1960 which stated that the graduating high school students who fall in the top 12.5 percent will get an entry straightaway into the highly acclaimed University of California.

This law went onto gain a lot of success. Community colleges across California were open for all comers which included adults as well. The plan certainly put California on the world map as far as higher education was concerned.

Unfortunately, things seem to have changed a wee bit in the past few years. The number of students from high school falling into the top third bracket has fallen considerably. It has crashed to 18 percent from its original 22 percent which is a major cause of concern.

With lesser number of students falling in the elite group, the enrollment has gone down which has caused the overall revenue to go down as well. Due to this rather unwanted development, University of California is forced to enroll less numbers of non elite-group students as the institute is not able to provide enough facilities due to cash crunch.

According to the law passed in 1960, the University of California will have to keep certain numbers of seats reserved for the elite group students. However, with a drop in the number of students, many seats are going empty.

On the other hand, the private higher education institutes across California seem to be benefiting from this calamity. These institutes are not supposed to have any seats reserved for the elite group students. With limited non-elite group students seats available at the University of California, many students are opting for private institutes, even if it means that they would have to shell out higher tuition fee.

It has now been observed that most of the international students too are opting for private universities in California. Infact, California has turned out to be a place that has the maximum numbers of international students.

However, the higher education administrators are not very happy to see the private institutes benefiting at the cost of the public institutes. Many of them are of the firm belief that no matter how hard private universities try, they can never match the quality and standard of the public institutes.

Administrators are also of the opinion that the public universities have to take adequate steps in order to come out of the current mess. Another major drawback for these ailing institutes is that private universities are open to students of all age groups.

In a nutshell, what California is witnessing at the moment is more numbers of students in their 40s and 50s attending college. This is certainly not a good sign for the overall economy. Ideally, a country should have teenagers and youngsters opting for education.  Experts say that the current situation could worsen if necessary steps are not taken on time.