Reagan's plan to introduce tuition fees was ultimately defeated by the regents in August 1967, although they did allow him to raise the revenue he wanted by increasing existing administrative charges. In economic terms, the difference between Reagan's plan and the regents' eventual compromise solution was minimal. Yet the idea of introducing tuition fees was understood as a devastating symbolic attack on the tradition of free college education. Once tuition was accepted in principle, how could one remain committed to the ideal of free education? And what limits would be placed on annual increases? Reagan's state-level experiment in education reform subsequently served as the blueprint for the massive overhaul of higher education which he undertook as president.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 256