<p>Dstark, be careful, or you are going to get banned from CC. You can disagree with me or not. But when I disagree with you, I don't call your stuff BS. You have your opinions and I have mine.</p>
<p>Secondly, these are entirely separate discussions and I am treating them as such. This is not one unified discussion. That is why we have separate threads, after all. Otherwise, we should just have one big super-thread. I don't take stuff that you say on other parts of CC and use them here. Each conversation has to be treated as separate.</p>
<p>You also ask how is it that all the Ivies combined cannot have the same number of people making less than 40k as Berkeley does. First off, I would say that of all those people at Berkeley who make less than 40k, how many actually got into the Ivy League? Few, you must agree. And that's exactly what I said before. The Ivy League takes the extremely qualified, but poor people. Those poor people who are less qualified end up at Cal. Let's face it. You know and I know that a superstar student who comes from the ghetto is probably going to be better off, both academically and financially, by going to Harvard than going to Cal. It shouldn't be that way, but it is that way. If Cal really wanted to help out poor people, it should help out them.</p>
<p>Nor is it a simple matter of a few isolated individuals. The aggressive financial aid that schools like Harvard provide to the poor people it does admit has been a policy for decades, and in fact, has now been publicly codified with that <40k announcement. It is of course true that Harvard does not admit many poor people. But the ones it does admit get an unbelievable deal - far far better than anything Cal offers. And this has been true for many years now, and looks like it will be true for many years to come. </p>
<p>The point is, if Cal really wants to say that it is the best financial deal out there, then it really should be the best financial deal out there, and for everybody, not just to those poor people who were pretty good, but not good enough to get into HYPSMC. </p>
<p>Now to bluebayou, you are now following the track that I wanted this discussion to go. Berkeley can't get better because of POLITICS. And to that, I agree 200%. Political forces keep the Berkeley undergraduate program from improving. </p>
<p>But that of course begs the question that why don't those same political forces affect the quality of the UC grad schools? Why only undergrad? For example, why don't the politicos in Sac-town force UCSF Medical to open its doors wide to admit less qualified students? After all, what's more valuable to California, another fluff-major undergrad, or another doctor? It's quite interesting to me that the political pressure is exerted on the undergrad programs, but rarely if ever the graduate programs. It's also no coincidence to me that the UC graduate programs tend to be better than the undergrad programs. </p>
<p>And as to your contention that HYPSMC don't admit too many poor/middle-class people (hereafter called "PMC") , well, then that only serves to illustrate my point. Of course it is true that HYPSMC don't admit too many PMC. But as we know, they don't just admit random PMC, they only admit the very best people who happen to be PMC. What that means is that HYPSMC end up with the best of the PMC, and Berkeley ends up with those PMC who couldn't get into HYPSMC. Hence, HYPSMC skims the cream off the top, leaving the rest for places like Berkeley. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that. It just calls into question Berkeley's assertion that they help all the PMC. They're not. They don't help them all. They're help only those not good enough to get into an elite private school. </p>
<p>Now, as to your last question, I think you're being unfair. I readily agree that Berkeley is arguably the best undergraduate public school in the US. But is that really good enough? Are you satisfied with it being the best public undergrad program? I know I'm not. That's like saying to a lady that she's the most beautiful woman in this room. I would rather have Berkeley be the best undergrad program, public or private. Why not - look at some of the Berkeley graduate programs, some of which are the best around, public or private. But that gets back to the whole political tack that I agree with.</p>
<p>One thing that can be done, fairly easily, to get around the politics is to shine a bright light at the bad students. There can be exposes of students getting A's in joke fluff classes for doing nothing, and of students spending weeks not going to class, and then asking the state taxpayers how they feel about their tax dollars supporting that. I think that not even the most craven Sacramento politician will support student laziness and people getting degrees for doing nothing.</p>