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

Parents Forum
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@sevmom Yep. It’s never easy to go backward once folks get the money in their pocket, but this issue has had a lot of phone ringing.

A bill came up short recently, but only by one vote. I’d expect a deal to be cut. It also has to be pointed out that the budget in CA is in a different state than it was in 07. There are still dangers - relying too much on Silly Valley cap gains, for instance - but we are in a way less precarious position. The pension trainwreck is still looming, however.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article66425977.html

What I have heard is they will tie it to funding levels. Who knows. But there will at least be cosmetic chances. And probably only cosmetic, knowing California.

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@sevmom - Again, I see no logical argument.

I don’t see why there is more “drama” if you (as a CA resident) pay $60K/year to UCB/UCLA vs UMich or UVa. The rich/poor divide already exists…if you can’t afford OOS and don’t get into your “top choice” UCs, you will be no more or less affected under a plan such as this. Your choices remain the same. This only helps those who are willing to pay.

I would argue that there is more “drama” now when you obfuscate and bring in nebulous criteria such as “diversity” into the mix. A kid from New Jersey is not very different compared to a kid from San Jose :-)…a kid from Tanzania, maybe…

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@sevmom I’m with you about the suggestion to have 2 rates for CA residents. It already feels like a bit of a lottery, especially for engineering where the acceptance rate at UCB is under 10%. To say “you can attend, but you’ll have to pay $10K more than your next door neighbor” would really cause hard feelings. With the holistic admissions, it’s entirely possible you could have a higher GPA and test scores and be told you have to pay more than your neighbor. I don’t know that that would be better than not getting in. The student or their parents might just be bitter for 4 years knowing they had to pay a lot more. I’d much prefer the state reallocate resources and place more priority on the UCs as an investment in the state - look at all the tech that has sprung up around UCSD as an example.

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“you can attend, but you’ll have to pay $10K more than your next door neighbor” – without getting anything else for that $10K to boot.

Yea. I can just see that . 8-|

The car registration analogy is wrong: because the person paying more is driving a bigger, stronger car that’s harder on roads/environment than the dude driving the 7-year old Honda Civic.

But under this 2-tier plan, the person paying $10K extra is getting nada extra.

I also question the premise that kids who don’t get into UCs go to OOS flagships. Certainly some, but hardly all. Most go to the Cal States or CCs with a transfer to the UCs.

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@jchan9423 Well, I don’t see the logic in your argument either , so we’re even. :slight_smile:

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@katliamom - side note for you:
check https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/brochures/fast_facts/ffvr34
Vehicle License Fee is 0.65% of the value of the vehicle. Yes, Weight is one of the consideration, but so is the “price of property”
There are other examples of government charging different fees for the same service, I used this as an easy example. From your comments, I sense that your disapproval of the idea does not hinge on the aptness of the analogy anyway.
And those kids who go to CSU or CCs would not have any different outcome with this plan…

@sevmom - I am making a simple quantitative argument. The emotional toll exists with either plan, but at least one of them is transparent.

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If only things were as simple as a quantitative argument.

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If I’m reading this thread correctly, in summary… It is difficult to gain admittance into engineering programs that are well-regarded internationally. Qualified OOS/International students should be happy to attend any of the UC schools, especially the bottom 3, because…well, they’re UCs. Qualified in-state kids shouldn’t have to attend the bottom three schools because… Merced. We want less OOS students to attend our top three UCs, but we want the high-tiered OOS flagships to continue to accept California high stat students. And, we need to follow the state’s Master Plan for Higher Education (except for certain parts like the enrollment cap which limits the enrollment to 27,500, and the top campuses are all way above that.) And, somehow, our wacky politicians, who helped create this situation, are supposed to fix this, and get the voters to agree to be taxed higher or at least agree to pay thousands more than their neighbors. :slight_smile: (I hope I didn’t sound rude because this truly has been an interesting thread to read, and it really got me to think about our state’s higher education system in ways I never have before! Thank you!)

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“We want less OOS students to attend our top three UC’s, but we want the high tiered OOS flagships to accept California high stat students.” That is an issue that I am also still confused by in this thread.

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@sevmom - Me, too.

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@fish125 No. You are not reading it correctly. And you know that you are not.

If you have read the master plan, you know the UCs pretty well, I would guess, and you know the enrollment, for instance, of nonresident and resident students at Merced.

And you know, then that there are actually thousands, 6200 just about, of CA resident students there.

And you know, then, that there are 24 non resident.

And you know that Irvine claims to have room for MORE students, but just can’t “afford” more CA resident students.

And you know that UCB and UCLA are both quite a bit less expensive for nonresidents then UMich or UVA (almost 20K cheaper than UMich for a 4 year degree. )

And you know that that with 30,000 nonresident students, if the UCs got another 20k for each over their 4 years, that would bring in at least 600,000,000 dollars in 4 years. Six Hundred Million. Dollars. Say the UC only upped it by 2500. 10k. 300 million. (and without adding a single nonresident to Merced.)

How many additional resident students could we add? Or how much of the “kicked down the road” unfunded pension liability could we write down?

Hmmmm.

To act like this problem is overwhelming and intractable is silly and untrue. It is a problem created by an anti-tax movement and a recession, exacerbated by game-playing UC Admins. But the recession is mostly over (although it about time for another one) and the tax crisis is mostly behind us (except unfunded pensions all over the state.)

But there are many, many fixes that involve nothing like the silly hyperbole we sometimes see here.

As far as increasing the tuition. That is not a bad idea at all - as long as you did like Harvard or Stanford did when they raised tuition and raise fin aid to match. But it is politically untenable.

But for many CA families, they would be fine paying a base tuition of 20k a year, say, if the fin aid for need was raised. Many of my D’s friends are going to have to drop more than that to go out of state and they would prefer to stay if they could attend one of the “top six” even at a higher tuition. But again, it won’t fly politically - because everyone knows what goes up never comes down.

But the problem can be ameliorated without an in state tuition increase, but it requires California politicians with vision - and that, as you note, might be wishing for too much.

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Simple solution: Promise politicians jobs in the UC system after their terms expire if they increase UC funding. Problem solved.

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“Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.” Thomas Jefferson , Father of the University of Virginia :slight_smile:

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@Calidad2020 - I send apologies if you were offended by what I wrote. From the tone of your response, I’m not sure if you were or not. I can assure you I in no way meant to be rude. I love hearing fellow Californians who care about the state, whether I agree with them or not. I’m a very proud UC/CSU parent and a CSU grad and an active alumna, so I’ve been on the front lines with the CA Master plan for many decades. As historically has been the case, the powers-that-be will probably change or update the Master plan before they make any drastic changes in financing. The last time the Master plan was majorly “updated” was in 2010 in response to the state’s lack of funds. As the state’s population has nearly tripled since the plan was originally created in 1960, it is long overdue to completely reevaluate the scope of the plan, especially with the growth and popularity of many of the CSU’s.

As far as raising the tuition that is going to be difficult not just because of taxpayers/politicians, but also because our state’s college students have a very strong, unified, powerful, and loud voice. I’m on several campuses throughout the state each year, and not only are students against any increase, there is a vocal group that want the state to revert to the original 1960 mandate that CA public colleges be tuition-free. Since 50% of our UC students system-wide attend their schools for free, there is only so much the other 50% can afford to pay.

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@fish125 I was not offended. I do think tho, that some of what you were jokingly summarizing has, unfortunately, started to become “accepted wisdom” when it is not wise and should not be accepted.

The thing that I recoil against is the idea that is being put out there that this increase in nonresident enrollment was “inevitable” or “to be expected” or “had to happen” or however it gets characterized (Not by you - I’m talking more in general. You hear those kind of things a lot these days - esp from UC admins. “We had to do it because the legislature wouldn’t give us more money!”) But very few people had really taken the time, until the audit did, to go in and look both at what is happening and HOW it is happening and talk about it publicly.

The UC system is, to quote at least two of our politicians UUUUGE and the vast amount of money that flows through the system can be redirected, repurposed, not spent, you name it. None of it is easy - there are tons of stakeholders - but there is no law that “when the money gets tight, you have to let thousand more non-residents into UCLA and UCB asap.”

So when I hear the ideas that we “had to” let the UC schools keep nonresident tuition money, and “no one” but poor CA resident students with no other choice will go to Merced or Riverside and that “of course” we should admit more non-CA students to engineering and econ because that “the only way” they will pay to attend our schools that are “losing luster” etc. etc. it does get my goat a bit. Because none of it is true. Nor is there any law that changes made to gap a funding emergency have to be made permanent.

There are many, many ways to address the funding issue. Our UC budget is bigger than 20 states, I think. And it does make me cranky that what is clearly the schools, at least to a certain extent, using the cover of a budget crisis to grab control of more money - especially the “big 6” and then to watch them appear to be less responsive to CA family needs.

I agree with you on the tuition, as I said. It is politically untenable (and I think the UCs would abuse any increase anyway) but for your average CA resident, raising tuition if you raised aid so that lower and middle income families paid the same amount based on income as they do now, would actually allow more CA students to attend - but it won’t happen. Right now many folks who would spend the extra money in CA on our own schools are instead spending it in Washington and Oregon and Arizona on other state’s schools.

One thing the audit shows is that, with rising admission stats for resident students, there is a huge glut of CA students with the stats to attend UCs who can’t, because there is not space. And as Pres. Napolitano said, we could increase the % of nonresident students at the top campuses to 50% tomorrow. So demand that would not water down the schools is there. The question is how to weigh that demand from a “mission” and a “financial viability” perspective to best serve the needs of CA families and CA’s future…

Hey, I sound like a PSA! Anyway, I think I’ve made it pretty clear what my POV is. I just want to put the brakes on the “this is how it has to be” argument. Because it is not how it has to be. It is not how it was in 2004 and it doesn’t have to be how it is in 2024. But folks in CA will need to make some choices about where they want the UC (and CS - which has it’s own set of issues but will also be impacted by higher ed funding decisions.) system to go.

I appreciate that you and a few other folks on this board have a good understanding of the complexity - better than I do, as I’m pretty new to this party. But I am discouraged how much of the accepted, but untrue, orthodoxy is echoed around here. Hopefully things like this audit change it a bit going forward.

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@sevmom – The two-tier pricing system is STILL better than what currently exists because it admits more Californians to UCLA and Cal. I think of it as the “second-chance” system aimed at keeping UCLA & Cal rejects from taking their money to Michigan or UVa.

The Californians who are otherwise rejected from UCLA and Cal are given preferential consideration for one of the OOS seats, which was previously closed to them. In other words, it opens the competition for the higher price seats to everyone, including Californians who may benefit from the “relaxed” criteria. (Not everyone on this thread agrees that the criteria is relaxed for OOS, but for the sake of argument, let’s grant that it is true.)

Basically, what UC is saying is – given identical qualifications and ability to pay – we will give Californians preference for the OOS seats.

This is an improvement over status quo. Not perfect. But pretty dang clever.

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“we will give Californians preference for the OOS seats.” But then they’re not really OOS seats since they’re occupied by Californians!

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OOS diversity should be considered broadly – and not limited to ethnicity or race. OOS kids bring different life experiences, cultural perspectives, and yes – brain power to the UCs. The two flagship campuses draw from the cream of the crop of other states and other countries. This OOS reach enhances the reputation of the UCs overall.

I daresay, without their national and international reach, UCLA and Cal are indistinguishable from Riverside or Santa Cruz. They too would acquire the reputation of a middling, nothing-special state school found anywhere in the U.S. Ask anyone if they prefer the school with “best kids in California” or the school with the “best kids in the world.” The answer is not A. I would caution against promoting an aggressive anti-OOS position. This would ultimately be self-defeating.

It should also be noted that the definition of “Californian” is problematic when applied to the trajectory of a student’s academic and professional career. The economy and population of California are not discrete. They are inter-dependent and part of the overall US. Many UC students do internships in other states, and some stay employed OOS for their entire careers (like me). So while California gave me a great education, this education is being put to use generating taxes for another state. The talent stream moves in the other direction as well and California is benefiting from workers educated by other states of course. Additionally, there aren’t many native Californians (as compared to immigrants or OOS transplants as a percentage of the total state population). Of those who are native, even fewer stay in California all their lives or even long enough to see their kids attend a UC for which they’ve been paying taxes to support. Since the UCs take federal money, an argument can be made in support of expanding its mission to include non-Californians.

The in-state tuition definition of “Californian” is peculiar in light of these complexities. In practice, it allows a recently-arrived immigrant or transplant to pay in-state tuition, while requiring a native Californian who relocates in high school to pay out-of-state tuition. The number of years you’ve been a California taxpayer is not taken into account in current definition for in-state fees.

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@sevmom ^^^ Right!! Californians take back those OOS seats! It doesn’t matter what you call those higher-priced seats – "OOS "or “OOS-taken-back-by-Californians.” The result is more Californians are sitting in the seats of UCLA and Cal classrooms. The lower-price seats are still subsidized by the higher-price seats. Only now, some of those higher-price seats are taken up by Californians who otherwise would have been shut out.

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I wouldn’t like that kind of plan but it doesn’t matter to me since I don’t live in California. I know it is frustrating. I had a son who was initially waitlisted at Virginia Tech in engineering. He got off the waitlist but had to start in University Studies first before moving to engineering. I was definitely initially annoyed about the waitlist. His SAT’s put him well above the average SAT. And guess what-when he got to school, there were kids on his dorm floor from all over, including an engineering major from California! Guess he got my kid’s spot. :slight_smile: