<p>Well, annasdad, California’s public higher education system (the largest in the world, BTW) is hardly the only game in town. We have at least 75 independent, non-profit colleges and universities, too, including Stanford, Cal Tech (highest ranked world research university by the Times Higher education magazine, London), USC, the Claremont Colleges, Santa Clara, Chapman, and Cal Arts (founded by Walt Disney, alma mater of most of the Pixar animators). I don’t know of any other state that has our options. Of course, we have about 37 million people, so we need a lot of options.</p>