Could this 2013 Nobel laureate afford college today?{audio @ link}

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http://grist.org/climate-energy/could-this-2013-nobel-laureate-afford-college-today/

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When Randy Schekman attended the University of California-Los Angeles in the late 1960s, getting a good college education was unimaginably cheap. Student fees were just a few hundred dollars; room and board was a few hundred more. “I could work a summer job and pay myself for the whole school year,” says Schekman, now a cell biologist at the University of California-Berkeley.

On Monday, Schekman was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for his pioneering research on how cells transport proteins to other cells — a process fundamental to cellular communication.

Schekman’s college experience at UCLA, from which he graduated with a degree in molecular sciences in 1971, shifted him from wanting to pursue a career as a medical doctor to a fascination with scientific research. It was pivotal to his success — in science, the ultimate success. That’s why it’s so striking to hear Schekman say that as a Nobelist, he now wants to use his newfound influence to stand up for publicly funded higher education, which he considers to be “really in peril all over the country.”

In this episode of Inquiring Minds (click above to stream audio), Schekman explains that his dad, a middle-class father of five, “never had to pay virtually anything to educate his kids. That simply isn’t possible now, and it’s just tragic that this happened.” The numbers are staggering, particularly within Schekman’s own state of California. For example:

* Tuition increased by 72 percent from 2008 to 2013, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
According to a report last year by the San Jose Mercury News, a student from a middle-income California family would pay thousands of dollars more to attend Cal State East Bay than to attend Harvard (after financial aid).