I'm quite OKw ith paying some taxes to subsidize their education as long as the colleges are run with sufficient fiscal discipline. The more well-educated people we have the more California's economy is likely to grow. This is why education was so heavily subsidized in California to begin with, and part of the reason (in addition to our copious natural resources) for the state's long-time leadership in science and technology.

to turn you statement around, for a bunch of kids fresh out of high school getting their first dose of political reality, "you are going to be about $50k in debt when you graduate because your elders and betters have screwed up the economy so badly" is a pretty poor payoff for the last several years of academic effort.

You might be quite OK with that, but what about someone who is barely scraping by and wouldn't be OK with it?

If you want something fund it with your own effort, not by pointing a gun at someone and telling them it's good for them.

Someone who is barely scraping by is a) the least likely to get hit with more tax, b)most likely to derive benefit over the long term from an economy wide rising tide, and c) most in need to subsidized education that could improve their earning power.

I have extensive first-hand experience of barely scraping by, and reject your analogy of 'pointing a gun at someone'. For things like education and healthcare (which liberals like myself believe to be worth public funding), some compare it to sticking up the weakest and poorest and taxing them farther into poverty, whereas the reality is that those services, which are almost essential for economic security and advancement, are stuck behind a big paywall and those who object to the existence of this wall have guns pointed at them. Yesterday, literally so, in the form of riot guns.

High school graduates have the lowest earning power and the highest rate of unemployment. I don't see the social good in saddling them with tens of thousand in debt so that when they graduate they are forced towards the most lucrative offer. That's how we ended up with a shortage of scientists and engineers and a surplus of quantitative analysts on Wall Street.

I am not fresh out of high school, but I still think the state should give them more free government services. I have a lot more use for educated fellow citizens than I have for, say, roads. (It's not socialism when the government builds roads that are free for everyone to use, but it is when we talk about educating people or helping them not die from some disease. I think that is pretty funny...)

When did I accuse anyone of socialism?

I believe he was anticipating the socialism argument from someone, and he was trying to nip it in the bud. You are in the set of "someone" but you are not the only element in that set. Don't take it so personally.