<p>I’m not saying UCLA’s gaming the system in some nefarious manner; merely that it has and continues to benefit from a common app. (Assuming there still is a common UC app… I don’t follow such things so closely anymore). </p>
<p>Also, when I say that our guidance counselors encouraged all of us to shoot for UCLA/Berkeley, I mean “all of us” – from the Irvine kids, to the Riverside kids, to the CSU-bound kids who were filling out a UC app hoping to get into Santa Cruz on a whim, they too were instructed to check-off UCLA and Berkeley… based on the very rigorous analytical conclusion of “hey, you never know!” </p>
<p>Needless to say, we did not have the best guidance counselors.</p>
<p>I have my doubts. As someone who pores over financial statements for a living, I’m eminently aware that drawing conclusions from high-level detail (especially when making comparisons!) is dangerous. The devil’s always in the details. </p>
<p>From a revenue standpoint, we know that USC charges a multiple of UCLA’s tuition, and consistently out fundraises UCLA. (Contributions would normally not be considered revenue for a business, but it’s my understanding that for not-for-profits, they are… as with CA state appropriates in the case of UCLA). Empirically, we know that the UC’s have been in the news quite often, describing their budget constraints as “dire.” USC has a meaningfully larger endowment than UCLA. </p>
<p>From just a common sense standpoint, I don’t understand how UCLA people can mock private school tuition totals… but then claim they somehow make more money (???). </p>
<p>Whatever, I did it anyway because I need a break from work. </p>
<p>Indeed, hospital systems revenue is the bogey. Of UCLA’s revenue, it’s hospital system was <em>by far</em> the largest contributor – $1.7B (or 34%). Tuition totaled $503M, 10%, (vs. $1.3B or 40% at USC) while gifts to UCLA totaled $195M, 4%, ($318M at USC, 10%).</p>
<p>That was before USC’s capital campaign was launched, so I’m not sure if we’ll see a sudden surge in that number when the next set of numbers is released, or if gifts donated during the “quiet period” would indeed be reflected here. </p>
<p>It’s also worth noting that in UCLA’s annual report, both Chancellor Block as well as the separate MD&A contribute a significant word count to talking about the school’s constrained budget. </p>
<p>So, when:
– the Chancellor says “hey, we’ve got budget issues,”
– and the Regents say “hey, we’ve got budget issues,”
– and UC’s auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers, say “hey, they’ve got budget issues”
– and the school’s numbers indicate that the University itself (i.e., not its lucrative health system) has budget issues
– and the website itself which hosts UCLA’s annual report says “hey, we couldn’t even print this out, because we have budget issues”…</p>
<p>… perhaps concluding that UCLA is on stronger financial footing than USC – or can afford greater outlays for its students than USC – is a bit of a stretch, no?</p>
<p>The UCs ‘budget issues’ are the result of legitimate complaints: hundreds of millions of dollars of funding have been cut from the UCs. That’s going to have some impact on them. But it was largely fluctuate depending on the individual school. UCR, UCSC, and even UCSD are all being affected by the budget cuts more than UCLA and Berkeley are.</p>
<p>What i think both universities are worried about the most is losing the amount of their diverse students on campus. Berkeley already made plans to help out middle-class students. I can only imagine that UCLA will follow in a like manner soon. If their budget isn’t restored, i can imagine both universities (and perhaps other in the system as well) becoming ‘need aware.’ Many are angered over the tuition increases at public universities. But instead of writing to their state legislators to reinstate funding, they decide to ‘punish’ them by preventing funding from being restored, as if that would lower tuition.</p>
<p>But we’ve both largely been digressing. You didn’t address phantasmagoric graduate student point (which was the point of contention in the first place.) Is the devil in the details? Well, what i can say (by looking at the data) is that the majority of USC’s ‘graduate students’ are in its professional schools (e.g. law, dentistry, etc.) This is a bit different from graduate students in the traditional sense. I’m not sure how much these schools take in through tuition and donation vs how much they spend. But i imagine that they run at a profit, however slight.</p>
<p>I don’t disagree regarding USC’s “orientation” vs. UCLA’s. USC’s strengths historically have been in its pre-professional schools and it follows that, over time, those areas of the university have come to overshadow others. </p>
<p>This plays into phantasmagoric’s point, where, again, I think he/she is again drawing (likely) incorrect conclusions as a result of not examining any details. Graduate students are more expensive… USC has more graduate students, ergo USC’s grad students are a larger expense goes his/her logic. Except, as you sagely pointed out Beyphy, much of USC’s graduate enrollment is in professional schools – typically profit centers which subsidize other graduate programs. Indeed, much has been made of UCLA Law and UCLA Anderson charging almost private school tuition since it expects its students to be able to pay this, post graduation, with those tuition dollars helping to offset the school’s tightened budget a bit. Assuredly, the cost of someone at USC Marshall (and how much they’re paying) is a boon relative to the cost of someone in UCLA’s graduate physics program conducting costly experiments in the lab. </p>
<p>Regarding your first point, FWIW, I find this situation both maddening and sad. As a Californian, I take pride in this state having the best public system and Berkeley’s (…and UCLA’s) contributions to our collective body of knowledge are legendary. (Obviously this goes for all of the UCs, but Berkeley especially). That we’re letting the finest system in the land erode is reprehensible.</p>
<p>I know you weren’t stating this, “nefarious,” re, UCLA. I just couldn’t help in getting a shot against USC. ;)</p>
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<p>Thanks for clearing that up; it is more understandable under the “all apply” statement, which you did state initially. But, it isn’t a counselor’s job to encourage random whimsical check-marks of apps sent to UCLA and Cal because there is money involved. If apps were free, then no problem. To many, the $70 fee isn’t much, but sending them to seven campuses is $490, which is material to family finances. In other words, instead of taking the counselor’s advice, the student should run it by mom and dad first. I don’t think you’d get as much of the random checkmarks that you portray to UCLA and Cal under these conditions. Those of lower standing wouldn’t want to apply to UCLA or Cal, becasue of this, which would be a waste of $140. I’m not aware of the fee waiver for poorer students; I’m sure there is something present though. </p>
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<p>One, I’m not sure why you’re so stuck on revenue, even if it would be nice “to turn a profit,” even (especially) in the world of academia. Rather, though, within these budgets are the telling points: how much is spent on students, equipment, faculty, etc … the cost of educating students. How they pay for them is how they pay for them, which is chiefly unimportant wrt the things beyphy originally stated. Clearly, UCLA is a bigger budgeted operation than USC, even when removing the various hospital operations. I don’t think that’s inconceivable at all.</p>
<p>Wrt bold-1, you’re forgetting that the state funds each UC for the difference in cost of education and the amount charged each CA student. I’m not sure if fees charged non-residents = or > (doubtful, wrt >>) than cost of educating them, but for CA resident students, fees >>>>> cost of educating them. The state makes this difference up in funding each UC. </p>
<p>Wrt bold-2, there are years in which UCLA out-fundraises USC. So I would question the usage of “consistently,’ here.</p>
<p>In a way I disagree with beyphy in his point about “important” cuts:</p>
<p>The chancellors of each UC describing things as “dire” is often a way of their stomping their feet. They’ll purposely cut something important that will evidence this direness, just to prove a point, instead of cutting things and streamlining things more efficiently. There are undoubtedly a lot of unnecessary costs within the UC system, which they could seek out and eliminate. But by portraying things as such only hurts the system more by negative publicity. </p>
<p>Could they reduce enrollment? Absolutely. It’s clearly evident that UC cannot live up to the promise made in educating the top 1/8 of high school grads of the pooled (along with the top 8% wrt each hs) because there are just too many people in the state relative to the amount of funds the state takes in income taxes -> essentially, too many poorer people entering the state. </p>
<p>The increase in non-residents undoubtedly would help each UC, but as beyphy stated, only Cal, UCLA, and UCSD in this order have thus far benefited by the implementation of this plan. It has helped greatly to overcome the shortfall in state funding of undergrads’ cost of education, and kept the budgets reasonably stable at each of these u’s.</p>
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<p>Again, regarding the bold, I’m not sure why this is relevant in the point of budgets, unless there are things such as these that USC doesn’t include in them. I’m not sure why USC would exclude certain budgetary items in its total package. A bigger budget is seen as good thing relative to total size of a university, not a bad thing.</p>
<p>And, again, I"m not really seeing your example in the latter part of your paragraph. What someone pays in tuition and fees doesn’t allay what is budgeted for these students.</p>
<p>Oops, sorry, for the incorrect spelling of your name, themegastud.</p>
<p>Based on your financial situation, I would not apply to UCLA. Expecting generous aid from USC with your stats is actually also quite a stretch.
It’s no “back up” and, unless you really wanted to go, I wouldn’t apply at all either.</p>
<p>You need to have serious reconsiderations regarding the colleges you intend to apply to. Apply to financially feasible colleges instead of XYZ semi-prestigious university that isn’t even my first choice.</p>
<p>I don’t want to join the (perpetual?) fray of USC vs. UCLA, but I’ll chime in since a post of mine is being called out.</p>
<p>themegastud,</p>
<p>Perhaps I was unclear in the analysis of mine that beyphy quoted, but I did show that healthcare services (i.e. hospital) revenue/expenses jacked up the numbers; this is why I provided additional numbers factoring these out. The inclusion of those dollars in a general operating budget is a disingenuous tactic that, unfortunately, many universities engage in, from OSU to UCLA to Penn. USC is also guilty of this: as my post showed, USC touts a $2.9 billion budget, but that includes $1 billion in healthcare services. I’m not sure how you arrived at the numbers you posted, but I used the most recent (official) financial statements from USC and UCLA, which showed that UCLA held the advantage in all of the figures I listed (except liabilities, where it had 0.5% more than USC).</p>
<p>USC’s endowment is also not ‘meaningfully larger.’ The margin is less than a billion dollars, which would yield less than $50 million in a year - that’s chump change for a multi-billion dollar operation, as both UCLA and USC are.</p>
<p>It’s true that USC charges more tuition and raises more donations, but UCLA gets hundreds of millions in no-strings-attached money from the state; sure, that total is going down, but it’s still better than not getting any at all from the state, as is the case for USC. But this is immaterial to the greater point - that as long as a school is at least breaking even, revenue is not germane to discussions like this. It’s expenses that matter, as I [pointed</a> out](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/14666821-post210.html]pointed”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/14666821-post210.html) in the thread beyphy linked to. “… this gets down to the bottom line: regardless of where the money comes from, what is the operating budget?”</p>
<p>Re: the effects of USC’s campaign on its numbers, I showed in an earlier post that a surplus in its budget had a year-over-year doubling due to increased donations and pledges. That’s why USC posted $3.9 billion, although its expenses were $2.9 billion last year. Cases like this demonstrate why we don’t pay attention to revenue, but to expenses (given the school isn’t in the red).</p>
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<p>I also addressed this point in that thread. [Here[/url</a>] is the post with a brief discussion of the rhetoric behind the UC budget issue.</p>
<p>It also doesn’t make much sense to argue that one school is in a better or worse financial position because some figureheads say so; we should rely on the numbers, which are devoid of spin or political motivation (ostensibly at least). Of course UCLA, among others, has budget issues, but that’s in reference to declining state funding, which may put the school in jeopardy eventually (doubtful, but that’s the image they want to project in order to get funding reinstated). Right now, the numbers we have show that, despite the sobering reality of budget cuts, UCLA is still in a better financial position than USC (though it may not in the future). That should tell you what a financial advantage UCLA has had over USC, esp. before budget cuts.</p>
<p>In short, all the points you’ve made here were addressed in the thread that sparked this tangent. I’m certainly okay with others rehashing discussions (that’s what these boards are for), but let’s not pretend that you’re bringing additional clarity to a haphazard or simplistic analysis on my part. I don’t attempt to make an argument unless I’m confident that it would be difficult to deconstruct, and your use of the same points that, in the past, were unsuccessful in countering my argument shows that it’s still sound, I think. If you have other points or data to present, I’d be open to re-evaluating my analysis, but you might check to make sure they weren’t presented in that previous thread. :)</p>
<p>(FWIW, I do somewhat have a dog in this fight through a secondhand affiliation, but it isn’t UCLA. I just call it as I see it. ;))</p>