@PragmaticMom Interesting but you aren’t certain they would have been admitted if those OOS seats didn’t exist. There seems to be an assumption that all these in state students were the best qualified.
I also think that if state legislators want more Californians at UC, they should increase funding to the university system. Establish another campus. As it is, they are forcing an unfunded mandate on the university. OOS seats are in many ways funding a gap caused by insufficient state appropriations.
@sevmom We found many Californians at Michigan’s open day too. And in the financial aid session. So they were taking not only places, but scholarship funds from Michigan students, who only make up 60% of the entering class.
@sevmom
There are a couple of points regarding this proposal:
Of course, it would be great if all IS applicants who entered UCs got subsidized tuition or even free college. UC administration should expend as much effort towards fundraising (via government allocations or other means) and keep costs/overhead low. The reality is that when there is a mismatch between funds received and expenses they have to come up with a way to bridge the gap. They have chosen to do this by charging variable tuition (IS vs OOS). While the fundraising through government allocation is not entirely in their control, admission criteria is in their control. This is where the proposal in post #647 comes in and is nicely summarized by @PragmaticMom in post #675
If it soothes your sensibilities you can publish a list price tuition for all and give a "California Taxpayer Scholarship" to ~70% (or whatever the current pool is) of the (IS) students. I would argue that students are not paying different amount for the same "goods"...some students have already paid the price earning qualifications deemed worthy by the admissions committee and they are getting a reward for their sweat equity. The other students (or their parents) have to make up the shortfall in $$.
Saying that Timmy nextdoor got in to UCB/UCLA at a higher tuition bothers me but it is ok for Johnny from Chicago to get the same seat for the same price is illogical and petty :-)
Not a chance. Cal (and UCLA) were world class institutions back when they accepted nearly every eligible student. And they are distinguishable from the other UCs based on their grad programs. Cal has more top-ranked grad programs than Harvard some years. The undergrads are just not relevant to University preftige.
“Saying that Timmy nextdoor got in to UCB/UCLA at a higher tuition bothers me but it is ok for Johnny from Chicago to get the same seat for the same price is illogical.”
You will be surprised how people would take things for granted. If Timmy got in to UCB/UCLA through this "second chance, the next thing you will hear is, “Why am I paying higher tuition than you when my stats are higher than yours?”
I can completely see that there would be such complaints…and subjective admission criteria bother me as well. But as long as we live and die by “holistic admissions” that’s part of the game. The suggestion here is to change one thing at a time.
@bluebayou – It’s hard to imagine a “world class institution” that also accepts “every eligible student.” These days, non-selective schools with high admit rates are not described as having an elite reputation.
If Cal and UCLA admitted everyone who qualified, by definition, they would no longer be elite or world class.
You say “undergrads are just not relevant to university prestige.” This may be the case for rankings by academic journals and scholarly organizations. It is not the case for rankings by organizations and news outlets that matter the most to your largest customer base, which comprises undergraduates and their paying parents.
Or someone else who is not wealthy may gripe that “the rich people’s kid gets an extra chance in the high tuition category that the rest of us cannot use”. (Of course, this is conditional on the high tuition category that is currently the out of state category being less selective, which may not always be true all the time or for all campuses and majors.)
While such a system is not worse for any California resident than the current system is, the potential political spin that can be put on it can be ugly. This is much like how the consolation prize of UCM admission for California residents who meet “top 9%” either statewide or in local context is spun negatively as “out-of-state applicants who are admitted are guaranteed one of their chosen campuses, but in-state applicants may get pushed to UCM”, even though it is really an advantage for in-state “top 9%” applicants to get UCM admission if they get shut out, while out-of-state applicants who get shut out get nothing.
To minimize the political blowback, I would suggest that the marketing department position the higher-price tier as the base price (everyone gets considered in this pool, with Californians getting preference if qualifications are otherwise equal) and describe the lower-price tier as a taxpayer merit discount (only Californians considered and generally more selective criteria - although in most years, I think I agree with others that the difference in criteria is negligible.
Not everyone qualifies for a merit scholarship now. Not everyone will qualify for a merit scholarship under the two-tier system in the theoretical future either. The volume and substance of political blowback will be no different than it is now, and should be dismissed for being the sour grapes that they are.
Except that they used to in the dark ages, and Cal was still highly ranked.
On this, we’ll have to agree to disagree. Harvard and Stanford, for example, are not known for its undergraduate teaching. They are top notch in a bunch of things, but if you want teaching, head over to LAC’s.
And btw: the largest item in the USNews rankings is ‘reputation’, (aka prestige), which is driven mostly off of research which means grad programs.
@bluebayou is right. Cal had the most Nobel Prize winners at a time – the 60s, 70s and early 80s – when it was relatively easy to get in. Yet they were still considered world-class schools, largely due to the graduate- and professional-level research. That reputation sort of rubbed off on those lucky undergrads.
I am a great example of this. And as I said on this forum before, I used to work with Ivy grads. In an international setting their Ivy League degrees – unless we’re talking about HYP – didn’t resonate the way my Cal degree did. It would bug one colleague in particular to have people say “ah!” when they heard I went to Berkeley, when his own schools – Dartmouth and Penn – largely drew blank stares.
@PragmaticMom The way to do it would be to implement a “need blind” (and in reality, due to legal restrictions gender and race blind - but that’s trickier) CA resident admissions system, and a full-need (at least to an income level) combined with higher in state tuition.
As you point out, it would actually allow MORE CA kids to attend CA schools and would not change the stats of admits much if at all. As long as the “full need” did not increase the tuition for anyone but top earners, it’s a win-win.
The only folks that would lose would be top earners whose kids currently have gotten in to a UC or top earners who believe their kid will get into a UC at current tuition. For those who have a kid currently, phase in the tuition increase only for incoming freshman.
Couple it with a 3k per year nonresident tuition increase, figure out a nonresident Merced and Riverside incentive (maybe if reduced tuition is not tenable, make it the only schools that can give nonresident merit aid until enrollment rises. (of course that merit aid could not make the nonresident tuition below a certain level that is still higher than instate.)
The only real problem here is administering the fin aid fairly to make sure that every family, were they to run a fin aid calculation today would, down the road, pay the same amount as they would today. Only those families that don’t qualify for need aid would pay the new full rate.
With 30,000 nonresident students in the UCs, you could probably 0 out half of them with the combo of a nonresident tuition increase and slight increase in the resident tuition for students not needing fin aid.
It won’t happen, but it could, if administered (HUGE if, I know) properly result in no net change in income and 10k to 20K more CA students in the UC system. And if the UCs currently do use perception of student income in their admit calculators, it would actually be the fair thing to do.
@PragmaticMom The way to do it would be to implement a “need blind” (and in reality, due to legal restrictions gender and race blind - but that’s trickier) CA resident admissions system, and a full-need (at least to an income level) combined with higher in state tuition.
As you point out, it would actually allow MORE CA kids to attend CA schools and would not change the stats of admits much if at all. As long as the “full need” did not increase the tuition for anyone but top earners, it’s a win-win.
The only folks that would lose would be top earners whose kids currently have gotten in to a UC or top earners who believe their kid will get into a UC at current tuition. For those who have a kid currently, phase in the tuition increase only for incoming freshman.
Couple it with a 3k per year nonresident tuition increase, figure out a nonresident Merced and Riverside incentive (maybe if reduced tuition is not tenable, make it the only schools that can give nonresident merit aid until enrollment rises. (of course that merit aid could not make the nonresident tuition below a certain level that is still higher than instate.)
The only real problem here is administering the fin aid fairly to make sure that every family, were they to run a fin aid calculation today would, down the road, pay the same amount as they would today. Only those families that don’t qualify for need aid would pay the new full rate.
With 30,000 nonresident students in the UCs, you could probably 0 out half of them with the combo of a nonresident tuition increase and slight increase in the resident tuition for students not needing fin aid.
It won’t happen, but it could, if administered (HUGE if, I know) properly result in no net change in income and 10k to 20K more CA students in the UC system. And if the UCs currently do use perception of student income in their admit calculators, it would actually
This two-tier pricing system that includes Californians in both tiers is never going to happen. It would be too politically inflammatory. It would be seen as yet another example of privileged, rich (and mostly white) kids getting to buy their way into Cal and UCLA through an exclusive, high-priced back door, while the smart, hard-working, tax-paying poor kids (which includes nearly all the minorities) are relegated to competing as part of the huge crush of kids clamoring to get in the front door.
@ucbalumnus Merced is spun negatively because, as the audit makes clear, it has been used in the past 7 years to stay in TECHNICAL (or at least attempt to stay in technical compliance - there is disagreement if they have) with the “master plan” %.
What has happened, as we have seen, is Merced increased its resident enrollment from 1739 in 07 to 6213 in 15. More than 3x as many CA resident student. A raw number increase of 4584 students
At the same time UCB DECREASED their resident enrollment by 1,750 and UCLA decreased their resident enrollment by almost 1000 (while UCB increased OVERALL enrollment by 2700 and UCLA increased it by 3500.)
That is why it is spun negatively. It is impossible to look at those numbers, and the increasing stats for UC resident admits and not conclude that Amins at UCB and UCLA said - “we have to take less CA students. We need the money!!” And then UC Admins said… “crap, the law says we have to send those kids SOMEPLACE” and then they looked at each other and all said “Merced!”
Merced is a great option for an academically strong student in CA who cannot afford other options. But it is unicorns and fairy dust to suggest that anyone should consider it, in most cases, a better choice for the top 9% of the UC students who apply, but is only “good enough” for 23 non-resident students.
@scipio it would not, tho, have to be “2-tiered” - it could simply be “full need” that only placed the additional tuition burden on students who don’t qualify for financial aid.
That has it’s own problem and also won’t happen - for a number of good reason, mostly around trust of the UCs to actually make the fin aid work as planned going forward - but it is similar to the plan used by a lot of privates.
At various time Harvard and Stanford talked about lowering tuition. I think Harvard even did it at one point - and found that applications fell. So instead, they raise tuition to stay with the “market” (ha!) and increase aid to offset the tuition hikes for families.
But, again, I know it won’t happen. But it is not impossible. Maybe if the fin aid was run through a different organization than the UCs.
Honestly, I think that the UCs could figure this Nonres enrollment explosion problem out if they increase nonres tuition, work toward making Riverside and Merced more attractive destinations for both international and resident students and do a better job or rebenching (and therefore taking away the incentive to sell seats.)
Merced opened in 2005, so of course it greatly increased its enrollment from 2007 to 2015.
Seems like you are back to always spinning everything UC does negatively based on your poorly informed anger. Would you rather that UC abolish the “top 9%” consolation prize admission for California residents?
I agree that this is how the left-leaning media would spin it even if there is no truth to it and UC admin may not have the backbone to go against that in the current political climate of CA.
Realistically, UCM and UCR have limited appeal to non-residents for the same reason they have limited appeal to California residents outside of their parts of the state, which is location away from the coast (UCM’s location was chosen for political reasons due to the San Joaquin Valley being the most populated part of the state without a UC campus). Yes, UCD has the same location issue, but it is much older and may have built up enough of a good reputation otherwise before the 1960s UC and CSU expansion took place (UCR was part of that expansion, but fell behind UCSD, UCI, and even the initially-unorthodox UCSC in the prestige/desirability race).
However, California residents can look forward to lower tuition and good financial aid to increase the appeal of those campuses, and those in their regions may find location to be an advantage, not a disadvantage. In addition, California residents may be admissible to UCM and UCR with HS GPA 3.0-3.39, while the non-resident minimum HS GPA of 3.4 disallows non-residents with lower GPAs from being eligible for admission (these differing minimums are largely irrelevant for the most selective UCs).
So bringing more non-residents to UCM and UCR likely means something like (a) putting a lot more scholarship money on the table (more than you are suggesting), and/or (b) lowering the UC systemwide minimum eligibility criteria for non-residents (i.e. lowering the 3.4 HS GPA minimum to 3.0 like it is for residents). Even though UCM and UCR may be comparable in selectivity to (or more selective than) the “second flagship” in many other states, it is likely that many students would just go to the “second flagship” in their own state instead of the “eighth or ninth best public school” in California (without the usual appeal of the coast/beach/etc.), unless the net price were significantly less.
@ucbalumnus Are you saying the only two possible answers to this issue are “admit the 2700 students who in 2006 would have otherwise gone to UCB and UCLA” or “Abolish the 9% rule.”
Are you, in your infinite wisdom, really suggesting those are the only two possible solutions?
Well, if that’s all you can think of, I guess we’ll have to look elsewhere.
(and, of course, it is hard to spin decreasing UCB and UCLA resident enrollment while drastically increasing UCB and UCLA nonresident enrollment and drastically increasing Merced resident enrollment without increasing Merced non-resident enrollment as reflecting positively on the UCs. And, of course, that is not my opinion, it is that of the auditors. You should read it. It is very interesting.)
