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The DeTocqueville Six
By Janet Holmgren

The state faces an unprecedented need for opportunities in higher education. Over the next decade, we will need to find spaces for more than 700,000 students. Does it make any sense to exclude a major portion of available capacity when thinking about the problem?

When Alexis DeTocqueville visited the United States in the 1830s, he marveled at the American ability to form non-governmental entities to meet public needs. Among the examples he saw were universities. The first colleges in the nation were independent colleges. Likewise, the first colleges and universities in California, formed in 1851, were also independent. The seventy-five members of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities are modern manifestations of DeTocqueville's characterization - they are the non-profit sector of higher education in the state. Yet, in many public discussions about higher education policy in the state, the independent sector is forgotten. The graph in the insert shows the contributions the independent sector makes in educating Californians. The public sector (University of California and California State University) is represented in purple. The independent share is represented as the invisible portion of the graph.

Discussions about education in the state often assume an invisible independent sector. But think about what the sector has provided to California. In the last five years, the independents have added undergraduate capacity that is equal to a mid-sized campus of the University of California. The majority of the growth in teacher education capacity in the last five years has also been from the independents. This year the number one ranking for the U.S. News and World Report and Time college editions went to California independent colleges. These things happened without any capital expenditure by the state.

Some may think that the independents are somehow limited to an elite cadre. Yet, the average family income for dependent undergraduate students in the independents is lower than for UC. Thirty-nine percent of our domestic undergraduate students are Black, Latino, Asian or Native American.

Unlike some states in the East, the California Constitution includes an express prohibition of direct funding to non-public schools. That and the prominence of the University of California and the State Universities may make it hard to remember the independents.

Still, the state aids the sector in two important ways. First, it provides a program of student financial assistance called Cal Grant that aids academically able and needy students. There is also a state financing authority that allows independent colleges and universities to finance construction and renovation of educational buildings. All expenses of the California Educational Facilities Authority are borne by participating institutions and the obligations involve no potential costs to the state. Among the four-year-and-above institutions, the funding going to needy students in the independent sector amounts to less than 4 percent of the total state general fund support for those institutions.

Our concern here is not to criticize the public sector. The state has benefited from strong public and independent sectors. In any national rankings the programs of the University of California, the California State University and the California Community Colleges are among the best in the nation. Indeed, the publics and the independents - all Californians - have benefited from having the rich diversity of institutions. What we are asking is that when you think of higher education in the state, don't forget those 75 colleges and universities that offer depth and breadth to the enterprise. Ignoring the contributions of the sector is a bit like fielding a baseball team with only six players. In the world we live in, that would be short-sighted.

Janet Holmgren is president of Mills College and the immediate past chair of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities.