I graduated from high school out there in 1977, so that was my first year of college, which was tuition free at the time. If you bought a parking permit and library card (not required) at Long Beach City College, you paid a whopping $12.00 to take up to 18 credits (without those, the 18 credits were absolutely FREE). Dad was teaching at Millikan High School in Long Beach at the time. Some things that disappeared were California's high schools ranking among the best in the nation. I took Semantics, Linguistics, American Short Story, American Novel, European Short Story, and European Novel in high school. Not a damned chance of that now. But, hey, everybody gets to keep "their money" so it's all good.