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FarCenter

(19,429 posts)
5. How much did UC Merced cost?
Wed Jun 27, 2012, 06:27 PM
Jun 2012
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California,_Merced

The result is institutions like the new University of California—Merced, which is located in the Central Valley, where the vast majority of Californians do not live. In April the U.C. Board of Regents approved a 10-year building plan for Merced. It will cost $1.1-billion, on top of hundreds of millions already spent, and over $100-million in annual operating costs. The dorms alone are slated at $131-million. Where California will find this money, given its banana-republic budget, is unclear.

This is madness. If California decides to invest a few billion dollars on upgrading its higher education infrastructure—and to be clear, I think it absolutely should—why not spend it in Los Angeles, where people who want to go to college actually live. When new businesses enter a market, they don’t say “Let’s find a place where nobody is offering our services.” They say, “Let’s find a place where lots of people are offering our services, because that’s where the customers are.”


http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/the-case-for-building-new-public-universities/26609
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