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<p>Something like a third of the funds from tuition increases are going back into financial aid. I think the cutoff for free tuition is somewhere in the region of $80,000 in income. “Automatic” merit aid is very difficult to get, and the amount awarded tends to be entirely dependent on financial need. There are other scholarship opportunities (at UCLA, through the scholarship resource center) that are a bit less competitive. One thing about these services though, is that they tend not to be well advertised. In general, I get the impression that a lot of private school “perks” are also offered at UC’s, but students have to do some digging around themselves to find them.</p>
<p>Also, a huge part of the reason UC COA’s are so high is that it’s expensive to live on campus. You’ll save a lot of money if you go off campus. Textbooks are probably a wash compared to other schools around the country.</p>
<p>As for getting classes you want, I think the issue is overblown. Your first few years there will be a few classes that you can’t get, but at that point it shouldn’t be at all difficult to find classes that at least fill some requirement. Once you get better class standing, you can mostly avoid the issue. You won’t be able to avoid time conflicts though (I’d imagine this is true for pretty much any school). The simple solution is to plan out the classes you need/want and be flexible. You’re not going take the exact 40 classes you planned on, but if you play the game right you’ll get the vast majority of them.</p>
<p>Taking a 5th year is also overblown. Most people do it because they changed majors late, they didn’t want to take full class schedules, or because they wanted an extra summer/fall to prepare to enter the job market. If you’re motivated enough, all of these are easily avoidable. The main problem with UC’s in this regard is that there isn’t much of a stigma attached with staying a 5th year. It’s probably a lot easier to <em>make the choice</em> to stay 5 years without that peer pressure.</p>