Editorial: UC is at the tipping point with overcrowding. Don’t let it become an education factory

During the decade before the COVID-19 pandemic, student satisfaction with a University of California education was slowly but steadily sliding downward. The biggest source of unhappiness: crowding, which often meant the inability to get into required courses, or even to get into a sought-after major.

The crowding situation has only worsened. In September, the dean of undergraduate studies at UC Santa Barbara warned the campus president and other university leaders that a dire shortage of courses meant freshmen couldn’t always get even the minimum