Audit shows UC admission standards relaxed for out-of-staters

Parents Forum
521

@dstark The California taxpayer has contributed to the UC and CSU system since the late 1800s.

In the 1980s, when many of us were already paying taxes, 50% of Berkeley funding came from taxpayers.

In 2005, Berkeley’s support was 450 million from taxpayers, 300 million from the Feds for research, 150 million in student fees and 120 million from the endowment.

More recently UC system has taken between 2 - 4% of the CA budget each year, historically.

Including all tax money, federal as well, about 40% of Berkeley funding is taxpayer sourced.

The taxpayer contribution via the General Fund to UC was 2.5 billion in 2013. That was a bit of a decrease from 2000 when it was closer to 3 billion.

Much of the UC operating funds also comes from the hospitals they run, (one of the problems for Berkeley, I’ve heard, in that it does not have as profitable a medical center as others) which were started and funded with taxpayer money.

Much of Berkeley’s 4 billion endowment came from taxpayer’s gifts and tax money and California donations that were in support of a California institution - usually from Californians. And from UC alum - although they tend to be stingier than their private peers, perhaps because they understand the UC taxpayer support and waste. But that’s a place that the school could better.

No one believes that they should “go to” Berkeley for $20 a year. Or “get to” got to Berkeley for the $70 application fee. Indeed, all most ask is for the opportunity to get to pay $13,000 a year to go to Berkeley or another UC school and study in one’s chosen field.

The bigger question should be why OOS/international students should get any financial aid or be charged a less than market rate tuition. They have paid no taxes to the state.

It is not out of line to expect a university, and indeed a university system to do what it says, and attempt to remove or ameliorate structural impediments to a significant number of students in the state whose parents have been paying into the system for at least 18 and often many more years… and will continue to long after their kids graduate.

But the idea that we should just accept inequities in the Berkeley or UC engineering admissions, or in providing financial aid for OOS/international students, or accept discounting of OOS/international seats at the most in-demand campuses and degrees is silly. Whether every Californian pays 20 bucks a year tax to Berkeley (and I can tell you that the 2-4% of my wife and my tax that goes to UCs (not to mention the CSU system) is a bit more than 20 bucks…) or pays 200 bucks a year, the university system was built and maintained by the state of California and its residents and taxpayers. I would guess most would like in state students to have as much access to the system as we can afford.

522

“Berkeley, I’ve heard, in that it does not have as profitable a medical center as others”

Huh?? Berkeley does not HAVE a medical center.
UCSF, in SF, is a separately operated medical school/ Hospital and resarch center.
It has nothing to to with UCB.

523

This year California will have an accumulated surplus of 5 billion dollars. At the end of 2016-2017 it is projected to rise to 8 billion dollars. Some of that money CAN be used on the UC system if the legislature and governor so chose. As a California resident and UC alum I personally think virtually all the seats at UC should go to California students. We have the money to do it if we choose to spend it

524

@Calidad2020, the state has been contributing less and less. The less the state contributes, the weaker the argument about protecting in state students is. The argument is getting very weak and a budget deficit of $150 million doesn’t help the argument.

Federal funding, by definition, includes funding from other states. If there is federal funding, there is an argument to include out of state students.

The last I looked, California receives 85 cents for every dollar it sends to the federal government. I do not understand why the taxpayers of California do not complain about this.

For the record, I edited the post because $20 was more of an average and of course some people pay more…some less.

Charging a little more for certain majors makes sense to me. MIchigan also charges upper classmen more than lower classmen.

525

A decrease of $500 million from 2000 to 2013 is a HUGE amount!

526

Interesting regarding women in stem at UC

http://www.abc10.com/news/local/davis/uc-davis-named-top-school-for-women-in-stem/131513450

527

At UCB, about 14% of the revenue is via (direct) state funding, while 28% is from tuition and fees. The rest is from contacts and grants (research); gifts and investment income, and then “Sales and Services of Educational Activities”. As research funding increases (and at other schools, medical related revenue) the other areas of revenue decrease as a % of the total.

A better way to determine how much state funding impacts operations, is to compare it to tuition and fees. In this case, it’s a $1 to $2 ratio. If you cut state funding by 20%, it’s as if you cut tuition by 10%.

Direct state funding still matters.

528

@menloparkmom that would make it MUCH less profitable (a good portion, like 25%? maybe - just going off memory here, could be wrong %, of some UC’s operating expenses come from their med centers, I think.)

@dstark there is no doubt less money in real and proportional terms come from CA tapayers. But that doesn’t erase or negate the huge down payment and investment CA taxpayers have made in the system. (and CA taxpayers have complained quite a bit about the net federal outflow at various times, but it doesn’t seem to do much good.)

And the budget shortfall certainly doesn’t explain or excuse why UCB COE would continue to have such gender inequality in their yield and enrollment long after committing to address the issue. You could admit half your students as OOS/international women and it would not affect the funding side.

And the budget shortfall certainly doesn’t explain why OOS/international students get fin aid from the state (which is something I did not know until this year - that’s kind of amazing.)

There is no doubt that the state has to figure out what it wants its UC system to be - and how much it wants to support it. It is likely the UC system as it is organized is simply too big to be managed effectively. There is no doubt that the budget shortfall constrains certain aspects of the UCB. But yield outreach, for instance, does not have to be a super-expensive proposition.

Much of it comes down to what problem do you want to fix. I’m not sure the high OOS/international ratios at UCLA and UCB or the out-of-wack gender URM ratios at UCB COE or Samueli are issues the UCB or UCLA admin are really that concerned about addressing.

529

“that would make it MUCH less profitable”

what IT are you referring to? UCB?

530

@menloparkmom Yeah. If they don’t have one it’s not making them much money!

I think the UC’s overall show about 6 billion from their Med Centers? About 20-25% of funding revenue or thereabouts. I think they have leeway how to allocate this money, but I don’t know the details.

531

Hi, @CaliDad2020 - As a UC parent/CA resident, I try to keep up with all of the pertinent stats. I’m not doubting you at all, but is this 6 billion per year in revenue from the UC Medical Centers or their operating costs? http://finreports.universityofcalifornia.edu/index.php?file=med_ctr/15-16/mcq-dec-2015.pdf

532

@fish125 this is not my world at all, so I’m just going off what I have been told - and seen reported in news/top line reports during some random googling:

this is a couple years old:
“With the UC Medical System earning $6.9 billion in operating revenues and hundreds of millions in profits…” http://www.afscme3299.org/documents/reports/PCTQuestionOfPriorities.pdf

from a UC site:
The University of California generated roughly $27.4 billion in 2014-15. UC’s Medical Centers, which operate as self-supporting enterprises, accounted for more than a third of the total. Those revenues go back into UC’s teaching hospitals and cannot be used to offset declines in state funds. Contracts and grants ­– UC’s next largest source of revenue – are awarded for specific projects and also may not be used for other purposes. http://universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/uc-revenue-and-enrollment-trends

or this:
“This report concludes that UCLA and UCSF medical centers experienced positive financial

growth from fiscal years 2008–09 through 2012–13. UCLA Medical Center’s net position, or

net assets, increased from $1.3 billion to $1.9 billion and UCSF Medical Center’s grew from

$761 million to $1.3 billion. During this period, the medical centers transferred money each

year to their campuses’ schools of medicine to provide financial support for strategic programs
and faculty physicians at the respective schools of medicine. The amounts of the transfers rose
over the five-year period, nearly doubling at UCSF Medical Center and nearly tripling at UCLA
Medical Center. While these transfers appeared to be for valid purposes, we found there was
too little transparency regarding the purposes of the transfers.” https://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2013-111.pdf

I quickly looked at a few others as well, but I will fully admit to not having any insight beyond basic news reports on how much of the operating revenue actually flows back into UC costs and how much is diverted to other non-UC uses. (that second CPA source suggests that no one really knows… which is possible.) So I could be missing key numbers here.

533

@CaliDad2020 Thanks for the update! I do know that back in 2014, the UCs projected by 2017 that expenses would be more than revenue at their med centers unless major changes occurred. I don’t know the status of that though

534

This is a bit off-topic but still an exciting story unfolding that will affect Cal revenue for years to come. UCB is in an epic patent battle with the Broad Institute/Harvard over a technology that allows targeted editing of genes in higher organisms, including humans. The technique is revolutionary, on the order of PCR ( used for detection of trace amounts of DNA). The researchers who developed the technique will almost surely win Nobel prizes. If UCB wins the patent it stands to profit from hundreds of millions in licensing fees. The case is currently under review by the patent office but it could months or years before it is settled.
http://www.nature.com/news/how-the-us-crispr-patent-probe-will-play-out-1.19519
(By the way, the principal researchers are all women)

[quote]

One patent claim comes from a team led by molecular biologist Jennifer Doudna at the University of California, Berkeley, and microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier, now at Umeå University in Sweden and the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin. They published a 2012 paper demonstrating that the Cas9 enzyme can be directed to cut specific sites in isolated DNA (M. Jinek et al. Science 337, 816–821; 2012), and initiated their patent application on 25 May 2012.

Another team, led by Feng Zhang at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, published a 2013 paper demonstrating the application of CRISPR–Cas9 in mammalian cells (L. Cong et al. Science 339, 819–823; 2013). Zhang’s team began a patent application on 12 December 2012.

Although the Berkeley team filed first, the Broad team submitted its application to an expedited review programme, and was awarded the patent in April 2014. The Berkeley team then requested a patent interference against the initial Broad patent plus 11 related Broad patents. On 11 January, the USPTO granted Berkeley’s request.

535

@Fish125 no worries. and again, I haven’t dug into it at all, so there might be more (or less) there than the reports show.

536

Have read through the report pretty thoroughly, and the most damning info is in the inequity of the OOS/International students at the different campuses (UCB, UCLA and UCSD are higher) and how that money is distributed (it isn’t.)

The whole point of increasing the OOS/International enrollment was to use the money to increase the resident enrollment, but as the report shows the resident enrollment has gone down. And UCB, UCLA and UCSD spend the bigger windfall they get from the higher rate of OOS/International on their students alone, therefore creating an even more inequitable funding model for the various campuses. The remaining campuses have less money to spread across their enrolled students.

There seems to be some issues with the “rebalancing” model that was supposed to level out some of that inequity, but apparently we are all to stupid to understand the model anyway:

"Although we agree the university can justifiably exclude from its
rebenching formula the state funding it uses for certain programs
that do not directly relate to educating students, it has not been
transparent about the amounts it excludes because it has not made
its allocation amounts publicly available. According to the budget
associate vice president, the university believes that the process is
too complicated for the public to understand. "

And, of course, looking at UCB’s 2015 statistics, the SAT, GPA and ACT stats for International students are essentially the same as for resident students (they claim US resident OOS have higher stats.) So we are selling our seats to at best equally qualified students from outside the US, so they don’t even contribute to the federal research monies the UCs get… And yet they don’t contribute to any increase in quality either. Well, we do get the money, but only at UCB, UCLA and UCSD.

Merced enrolled 8 OOS and 5 international undergrads last year (approx 1% of their total freshman SIR)… Riverside 51 and 174 (aprrox 5%) Santa Cruz managed 278 and 288 (about 17%). UCB… 1100 OAS, 1000 International (about 30%)… And they get to keep that money at their campus… hmm.

Interesting stuff in the report also about willful failure to fun pensions. It seems perhaps the UC’s have been intentionally mismanaged in an effort to strong-arm the legislature at the expense of CA resident kids.

537

I noticed this also, the number of OOS at Merced is crazy low…

When I looked at it, the first thing that jumped out at me, is that Merced (and all of the UC’s) are charging the same fairly high OOS rate (about $38K a year in tuition) a year in OOS tuition rate. Why charge the same rate for Merced? Other state systems would charge a lower OOS rate, for a lower tier in-state school.

For example, UF charges $28K a year in Tuition (12% OOS/International), while the University of South Florida charges $17K a year (15% OOS/International). OOS enrollment is price sensitive.

If they lowered the cost at the lower tier UC’s, OOS enrollment would significantly increase, and they would still be making a profit. The UC spends far less per student at the lower tier schools, than upper. They could charge several thousands dollars less a year and make MORE profit off a OOS student at Merced, vs UCLA. See the following link, under the Finance and Faculty tab to compare how much $ is spent on each student by school. It’s significantly higher for the higher tiers schools.

http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/search1ba.aspx?institutionid=110714,110705,110680,110671,445188,110662,110653,110644,110635

In addition, by increasing OOS enrollment at these schools, they would be increasing diversity, and raise their profiles (and rankings). Why, every 2 OOS students at Merced may mean an extra in-state student at UCB (using purely made up logic!).

So why not? As @CaliDad2020 said, I think they want the revenue at the top schools. Which leads to a reduction of in-state students at these most in-demand campuses. I (full tin hat mode) think they want to keep in-state enrollment high at the lower tier schools, so they can say “overall in-state enrollment is flat or increasing!”.

How much better could Merced, Riverside, Santa Cruz be (for all students at these schools), if they also could increase tuition revenue by increasing OOS enrollment?

538

@Gator88NE They changed the model a few years ago where the money went from going into the UC system in general to going to the specific campuses. At that point, according to the audit response to UC’s response to its findings:
“Since fiscal year 2007–08, when the university began to allow
campuses to retain the nonresident tuition they generate, the
number of nonresidents enrolled and the amount of associated
revenue skyrocketed from $248 million in fiscal year 2007–08 to
$728 million in fiscal year 2014–15.”

also noted in the report responses:
“Specifically, as shown in Table 15 on page 69, the
university enrolled 5,400 fewer resident students at the Berkeley,
Los Angeles, and San Diego campuses from academic year 2010–11
compared to academic year 2014–15—85,700 residents compared to
80,300 residents. These three campuses also had the highest growth
rate in nonresident enrollment during this time period and have the
highest current nonresident enrollment.”

Even worse non-residents who are admitted are guaranteed one of their “choice” campuses, but 15% of residents admitted were “diverted” to Mercer. Merced is “good enough” for 15% of the “top 12%” CA students of tax-payers, but not for non-residents. And, of course, CA kids fail to enroll at Merced.

I think the non-res tuition should increase substantially, use that money to offset increased international enrollment (since by UCB’s own admission, as well as the audit findings, international students have no better - and according to the audit, worse stats than many rejected resident students). And the UCs should push for increased OOS and international enrollment at Merced and Riverside, as those are campuses where increased international and regional diversity could actually add to the educational experience for in-state students. And they have the space.

There is something extremely funky about taking equally or less qualified international students over resident students. Especially since those students - at UCB at least - occupy many of the popular and/or impacted majors. 400 International students were in the Engineering department. 126 men and 20 women international students in EE & CS alone. 67 men and 12 women international students in ME. 53 women, 34 male international students in Architecture. 3 men, 0 women in anthropology… 1 in gender studies. 264 in Economics…

The other take-away from the audit is how much the UCs hide or don’t actually know where and how the money flows in their huge system. It’s pretty shocking that they couldn’t answer a large number of the auditor’s questions about costs and expenditures.

Here’s the actual report link again for those interested:
https://www.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2015-107.pdf

539

@Gator88NE What would be the selling points to OOS families to send their children to UCM or UCR? I only ask because I’m a Californian, and there are only a handful of non-CA public universities that I would consider paying OOS tuition for my kids to attend. (Disclaimer: I don’t mean to be disrespectful to UCM or UCR. I know many outstanding students at both schools, and I am very, very happy with the UC/CSU educations my kids have received or are receiving, but with so many wonderful public universities in the country, is there a big incentive for OOSers to attend any UC school?)

540

@fish125 I would say the way to go with Merced and Riverside is international students. The UCs assign “top 12%” CA students to Merced (or other campuses) even if they don’t list them as 1st choice. They don’t do that for international students. If they accepted less UCB engineers, for instance, but enrolled an equal number of international students in Merced or Riverside. Riverside, for instance, has a 48% acceptance rate for International students, Merced has a 41% acceptance. UCSD has a 39% acceptance rate for international students (btw, UCSD’s OOS and international acceptance rates are higher than their CA resident acceptance rates… huh?)

Gator is proposing a lower tuition for OOS/International at Merced and/or Rieverside, but I doubt you even have to do that. They need to increase international enrollment incrementally each year - as word gets out, if the program is any good, the applications will rise. (and for every international student admitted to Merced/Riverside/Santa Cruz, one more CA resident could be admitted to Berkeley/UCLA) And if the program is not any good, what business do we have sending our top CA resident students there?