How the candidates for California governor would make college more affordable

All of the top Democrats running for California governor are calling for major new investments to make the state’s public universities more affordable and relieve crushing student debt, suggesting they’d be more willing than Gov. Jerry Brown to open state purse strings and give students a hand up.

The proposals focus on helping Californians afford college as the Golden State struggles to preserve a public higher education system that was once the envy of the world. While California already has some of the most generous financial aid in the country, the University of California and California State University both have seen tuition and fees soar over the last decade. And the high cost of living in the Golden State is squeezing student budgets even further.

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom says he would guarantee two free years of community college. State Treasurer John Chiang would do the same while also cutting tuition at UC and CSU schools by nearly half. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa would give students two years of free college at any public university in exchange for two years of work in a community service program.

San Diego businessman John Cox, the only Republican candidate to respond to requests about his plan, is focused on cutting waste in university administrations rather than investing new money in higher education.

The plans come as students warn of an increasingly dire affordability crisis. At CSU, one in 10 students have experienced homelessness in the last year and more than four in 10 sometimes have trouble buying enough food, a study released in January found. Wilson Hall, the student association president at Sonoma State University, said his group burned through its entire school year’s worth of emergency housing funding in a few months last year.

“What our focus needs to be is how to provide more support for the basic needs, like food and housing, to attend college,” said Hall, a 21-year-old criminology major from Oakland whose tuition costs are supported by grants. “For me, that’s not tuition, that means putting gas in my car to get to campus or buying groceries.”

Here are some of the candidates’ proposals:

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