California universities getting the job done

I often complain here that media centered on the East Coast miss that some very good things are happening in California. Sure, we've got horrible problems, but a culture and institutions that might get us through this sad period in the country's history IS being built here.

And I often joke that I ended up in California 50 years ago (from the frozen east) because the state was practicing brain drain: making available a public university system unequaled anywhere.

And we're still doing it -- though we could always do better. The prosaic chart above, from the Atlantic, tells a story: low income students (Pell grant recipients) enroll in the campuses of the California system at a high rate -- and actually graduate at high rates. The UC system could function better (it could pay its faculty better and its administrators less) but it is still serving as the engine of the state.

And at a time when the right devalues education generally, that's worth celebrating.