Brown Taking On UC Affordability, Access

The University of California will soon be getting some special attention. UC’s Board of Regents today approved the creation of an advisory committee that will look at the university's cost structure. The committee will have just two members, Governor Jerry Brown and UC President Janet Napolitano. But Brown says the Regents will still be involved.

"This is an inquiry that, whatever thoughts we get or facts, we’ll come before the board and we’ll talk about it," he says. "And so this is a very, it’s not only advisory, it’s rather preliminary." 

Brown says much of his extended family was able to attend UC Berkeley. But he says that’s not the case now for many families now.

"You got your foreign students and you got your 4.0 folks," he says. "But just the kind of ordinary, normal students, you know they got good grades but weren’t at the top of the heap there, they’re getting frozen out."

Brown proposed the committee last November after the board approved a tuition increase that he and state lawmakers strongly opposed. But Brown and legislative democrats disagree on whether the UC and California State University systems should get more money in this year’s budget. Napolitano says UC has cut costs, but needs more money.