Why Pick a UC

Absolutely!! Sure they are large publics with all that entails: large classes with a hundred to hundreds of students, upper-division classes of 75-100 for popular majors like Econ, little personal attention, counseling generally whoever is at the window when you show up in line, understaffed units like career counseling, often not enough university housing for all 4 years, and so on. Probably not that different from your in-state U system.

But as a CA taxpayer I can assure you we love OOS students! OOS students are always full-pay and the $125K or more each one contributes in OOS fees helps keep UC afloat.