This article was in today’s paper and I know it was a discussed topic on this forum a few months ago.
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/science/sd-me-uci-ucsandiego-20170920-story.html
It really makes me sad to see how much less they are spending per student today than in 1990. I have students at UCSD who are not doing well and regret their decision to attend due to lack of support, impacted majors and overcrowding issues.
My bff’s daughter transferred out of UCLA this past spring after a frustrating year unable to get the classes she needs and seeing graduation taking at least 5 years, and that is without changing her major (which she couldn’t do either). It’s a problem at lot of them. Just wasn’t the college experience she wanted to deal with. They say these two schools will enroll over 40,000 in a few years, which was never envisioned. They have an uphill battle ahead.
UCLA has a 74% 4-year graduation rate, nearly the same as USC’s 77% rate. Berkeley’s is 76%. UCSB has a 72% 4-year rate. UCSD’s low rate didn’t help it during our consideration last spring when choosing among acceptances.
I agree that it’s too bad the state isn’t putting more into the UCs. UCSD is a great example of all the tech that can build up around one. IMO money into the UCs is an investment into the state’s economy.
There must be more to this story, since she seems unusual for UCLA. UCLA recently had a four year graduation rate of 74%, and a 12 quarter (i.e. four academic years, but not including quarters off school) graduation rate of 82% (87% for the three most popular departments, which are probably economics, political science, and psychology).
http://www.apb.ucla.edu/campus-statistics/graduation-retention
http://www.apb.ucla.edu/campus-statistics/time-to-degree
I guess she is the one in four students that don’t graduate on time, maybe it’s her major, I know she has amazing grades. Point of the post was to commiserate with the article and the overpopulation of the UCs and struggle for resources while there, which is what the article discusses being the issue going forward for UCSD and UCI. Wasn’t doing a comparison of school’s grad rates or wanting to jack the thread which is about UCs issues. OP is dealing with impacted majors, overcrowding and support issues, that is no fun. It is good people know about these things going in to any school that has them.
California is horribly mismanaged and resources are being diverted from the UC systems to other areas the government considers a priority. All of the recent unrest also affects the donation stream. Other universities have raised tuition more to cover shortfalls in public funding. It’s too bad they could not use more creative ways to deliver education at a lower cost, like more on-line content.
In the case of UCI, you could have done all your homework and still get unlucky by hitting this freak year where they ended up overenrolled by 800 freshmen. Cal Poly was another one with a huge bubble this, VA Tech back east, and a few others too.
When we were doing our research last admissions season, I was surprised to find out how big UCSD has gotten and how much more they plan to grow. I think it was less than half the size the year I was there. Even back then I had trouble getting some classes and had a much easier time at Cal in that regard. UCSB has been fortunate to stay at a much smaller enrollement than UCSD and UCI - hope it stays that way to preserve the quality.