Mina Aganagic is a professor of mathematics and physics at the University of California at Berkeley.
The University of California’s STEM programs have long powered upward mobility and economic growth. In 1960, California built a three-tiered higher-education system designed to ensure excellence and broad access, offering a world-class education at a public-university price. That promise has benefited students, made for a fairer society and produced extraordinary graduates: winners of Nobel Prizes and Turing Awards, astronauts, internet pioneers and transformative inventors.