Column: University of California was a beacon of opportunity. What went wrong and how to fix it

This column is the latest in a series on parenting children in the final years of high school, “Emptying the Nest.” Read the previous installment, about mourning the last first day of school, here. Pat Brown’s Master Plan for Higher Education, designed to guarantee every high school graduate in the state the opportunity to attend college, that helped my father-in-law convince his wife that they should move from her small hometown in Indiana to the planned community of Lakewood. More importantly, the growing outrage over the high rejection rate among California applicants forced UC to cap its out-of-state students at 18% for most of its campuses and attempt to grow its collective student body. Cal Poly, San Diego State and Long Beach State are already on many “Best” lists, but with 20 other campuses in the system, maybe it’s time for California to reconsider its Master Plan with an eye less to tiers and more to ensuring that fewer ambitious and qualified high school graduates are forced to leave the state to find a college of their choice that will admit them. After my father-in-law used the California college system to coax his family to the Golden State, all three of their children took full advantage, attending, over the years, Long Beach State, San Francisco State, UC Irvine and UCLA.