Survey: Californians give high grades to public colleges

Historic budget cuts and substantial decreases in enrollment have not hindered Californian's view of the state's university and community college systems, according to a recent survey conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California.

Among the findings:

- 68 percent of those surveyed are against future student fee increases.

- 56 percent are unwilling to pay higher taxes.

- 60 percent rate the state's public university and community college systems as "good" or "excellent"

- Despite their attitude towards the state of education, Californian's have low marks for Sacramento politicians (28 percent approval for the Governor, 17 percent for the legislature).

From the survey:

While strong majorities believe state budget cuts (70%) and overall affordability (57%) are big problems, far fewer (21%) characterize the quality of California public colleges and universities the same way. Despite significant budget cuts in higher education, at least six in 10 Californians give good to excellent marks to the California Community College (13% excellent, 52% good), California State University (9% excellent, 52% good) and University of California (13% excellent, 49% good) systems. These grades are nearly as high as they were in 2007 and 2008, when about two in three Californians gave positive ratings to the three branches. Today, parents of California college students, current students, and alumni give the state's higher education institutions similarly high grades.
 
But residents have little confidence in the state elected officials who have authority over California colleges and universities. Californians give Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger a 28 percent overall approval rating that matches his record low in July 2009. They give the legislature an overall approval rating of 18 percent, near its record low (17%) from July. State leaders get even lower ratings for their handling of higher education: 21 percent for Schwarzenegger and 16 percent for the legislature. Both are new lows. And most Californians have very little (37%) or no (20%) confidence in state government's ability to plan for the future of the higher education system (8% have a great deal of confidence, 33% only some).