<p>Nevertheless, California residents who want to go to a private college and stay near home have a lot fewer options, per capita, than do residents of the East and Midwest. In Illinois, with a population about a third of California’s, for example, there are about 60 private nonprofit four-year colleges (excluding another dozen or so that are exclusively or almost exclusively nursing schools), and if you add in those in the states we border, there are hundreds of options.</p>
<p>That doesn’t detract from the excellence of the California public system, which is widely (and IMO justifiably) recognized; but to say that the fact that a lot of people want to go to the public colleges proves anything is nonsense.</p>
<p>And of course in California, as in Illinois, the decreasing level of financial support for the public colleges leaves the question open as to how long the existing system will be viable.</p>