<p>UCSD is also changing their community college TAG program entry requirements for next year.</p>
<p>Instead of a 3.0 in cc classes and following the IGETC program, students will need to have a 3.5 and follow IGETC. </p>
<p>It’s getting tougher and tougher to get in.</p>
<p>3.5 for a guaranteed transfer? Whoa!</p>
<p>at some UC campuses I am hearing it is getting harder and harder to get out in 4 years, even if you are accepted, because it is so tough to get the classes you need. At some schools I hear students take a couple of acceptable transfer courses during the summer before enrollment, or after their first year at the local community college. You just have to be sure the University accepts the course for transfer credit. It does not go into your University GPA calculation at most schools, but the credits do count toward graduation requirement and often satisfy prerequisite requirements for upper level courses. My daughter has shaved a year off graduation between AP credit, a few CC courses taken in the summer, and passing out of her language requirement for credit. Saves us a bundle by graduating in 3 years, so we will pay for her Master’s degree.</p>
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<p>The philosophy may be a little different but it’s more of a difference
than being stupid. Costs in MA (which has taxes all over the place)
are comparable to those in NH. In general, you save on your taxes
while your kids are K-12 so that you can afford to pay for higher ed
out of savings.</p>
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<p>NH unemployment rate is 5.8%, well below the national average. The
quality of life is very good in the state and it frequently comes out
in the top ten in a variety of quality of life metrics.</p>
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<p>I know my state and the demographics.</p>
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<p>You made a baseless and ignorant statement.</p>
<p>Makes you wonder when we will run out of rich OOS kids to supply all the $$ to all these universities. Has to be a breaking point somewhere. I know quite a few local students who crossed Univ of Colorado off the list when the only aid for OOS was Loans.</p>
<p>I don’t think there are very many private or public universities out there worth full price.</p>
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<p>I have a cousin who lives in NH and we were talking about different state philosophies re taxation (NH vs. CA). </p>
<p>Taxes are low, she said. How do you do that? I asked. Easy, few services, her husband replied.</p>
<p>He told me that no one picks up the garbage…you take it to the dump yourself. </p>
<p>Agree with BCEagle91 that it’s a different mindset…fiercely independent, DIY attitude, people help each other.</p>
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<p>Higher ed impacts parents in the high-school through college age range
the most. Only about 50% go to college and about half actually get the
four-year degree. Given those statistics, it is frequently difficult
to get the voting populace fired up about higher education funding.</p>
<p>I’ve seen the increases in fees at UMass and I’ve seen a few feeble
attempts at protests over the fees. The suicide of Phoebe Prince as a
result of bullying got far more press and legislative action than
protests by a few university students.</p>
<p>There are far bigger immediate problems that families are facing from
cuts to K12 and social services. The numbers are greater for K12 and
we have the legal obligations to educate those in K12. In fact if we
did a better job at K12, perhaps college costs for remediation, and
the five and six year programs would go down on a per-student basis.</p>
<p>How do you argue that we shouldn’t provide low-income heating
assistance to those that need it during the winter so that some
students can possibly benefit the local economy ten years down the
road?</p>
<p>I believe that there were about 2,000 that showed up at the state
house for the budget vote. A description in one newspaper article
headlined cuts in social service and health programs and mentioned
that the bill would limit collective bargaining rights. Higher
Education cuts (about 1/6th of overall cuts) didn’t bring out
the constituents for higher public education. The largest group
of protestors were K12 teachers. Others that showed up were public
employees such as police officers and firefighters.</p>
<p>BTW, I don’t think that the draconian budget will pass but any
budget that does pass will have cuts.</p>
<p>My younger daughter - 3.5 UW GPA (Washington State public schools don’t weight), honors and AP, reasonably rigorous schedule, 2 parents are UW grads - didn’t even want to apply to UW. She knew that the odds of her getting in were low. Friends with very good GPAs, excellent ECs, etc, were rejected - and UW was their top choice. </p>
<p>My older daughter is attending an OOS private which, after her scholarship, costs about the same as UW. She’s getting a good education and is happy there. </p>
<p>I feel sorry for the young man in the article - too bad the HS guidance counselor didn’t give him better info - he probably would have made it into any number of private U’s in WA/OR with good institutional FA keeping the cost lower than UW - even by living at home.</p>
<p>I read the Seattle Times article with special interest since we live in the area and my daughter also goes to a school with full IB option. She is a full IB candidate but her GPA is nowhere near 4.0 (top 10% though) and she got accepted into UW. Naively or not, she considers UW as her safety school and she also has a few OOS private college options. Most of the top full IB kids in her school also thinks of UW as safety. Last year, about 50% of her IB program matriculated at UW while quite a few got accepted to HYPSM. I wonder if the rigorous courses trumps the GPA. No doubt that in a better year, this young man will have been admitted to UW but this also lends credence to the fact that students should take the most difficult classes offer. I know UW thinks very highly of IB and had the young man opted for full IB, the result may have been different. Just my 2 cents FWIW.</p>
<p>The guidance counselors in Seattle public schools, even at my D’s school are stretched so thin.( & they have eliminated career counselors which used to bear some of that burden)</p>
<p>I know UW thinks very highly of IB and had the young man opted for full IB, the result may have been different. Just my 2 cents FWIW.</p>
<p>I agree- I hope that those who had been pushing for their pet programs in the high schools will pay attention to that article. crossing fingers the new supe walks her talk more than the last one.</p>
<p>My oldest also attended an OOS private, but her EFC was lower than her sisters- ( it doesn’t help having them 8 years apart) She also had the advantage of attending private schools K-12 & had higher test scores as well probably because she was able to have accommodations for them, now that they are not noted on transcript, it seems to be more difficult to qualify for testing accomodations.
Neither wanted to apply to UW- not many students I know want to stay in their hometown.
However, when oldest was applying to colleges, she qualified for the Governors scholarship if she would attend an instate school. It was a merit award but had need attached to it- below certain income level, minority & or first gen college as well I believe.</p>
<p>I think that has been discontinued for all but youth in foster care unfortunately, as it seems Washington state has fewer incentives for strong students to remain instate- especially since we have fewer higher ed seats per capita than many other states.</p>
<p>Some students do save funds by attending a local community college- unfortunately none of the Seattle community colleges participate in the Stafford loan program making it more difficult for middle income students to go that route.</p>
<p>Since the industries that employ state residents ( that pay a living wage) generally require a college degree to do so, it is short sighted to continue to decrease funding & limit tuition increases.</p>
<p>This is purely about money, nothing more, nothing less. They can BS their way through this one all day, but it is just about how much tuition they can get from out of state/internationals.</p>
<p>Look at the number of accepted: 5,743 in state accepted, 8,194 out of state/internationals accepted. Of course far fewer OOS/intl will enroll. But that is a very large number of acceptances compared to in state students…whose parents are paying through the nose in sales/property taxes.</p>
<p>I am completely in favor of raising tuition to support the actual cost of the school, and giving out plenty of financial aid to those students who need it. Our A students with taxpaying parents shouldn’t get rejected from their local university for B students with a bigger wallet. If it was a private school, sure, they can set the policies. But a public university should serve the state taxpayers.</p>
<p>Bingo, ALF. Since 1980, we’ve been encouraged to believe that taxes are evil, and that the only qualification for elective office is a tax-cutting pledge. The battle still rages in Sacramento, even as most services are being cut to the bone, not just education – yet there are still plenty of legislators who will not even consider the tax side of the equation. Voters are shocked and outraged about cuts to programs and services that they use and want, but there’s a lot of NIMBY-ism going on: “Cut my taxes; cut someone else’s services.” We’re now at the point where cuts in services are touching the lives of the middle- and upper-class folks who voted for the tax hawks, and they don’t like it, not one little bit. I don’t know whether or not they make the connection, but it’s too late; public higher education is now essentially unavailable to many California students – and that includes the community colleges, which recently announced that they will have to turn away up to 400,000 students next year. We’ve gotten what we thought we wanted.</p>
<p>“We’re now at the point where tax cuts are touching the lives of the middle- and upper-class folks who voted for the tax hawks, and they don’t like what they’ve created, not one little bit. I don’t know whether or not they see the connection, but it’s too late. We’ve gotten what we thought we wanted.”</p>
<p>Okay, I see your point on that, and that certainly does apply to some cases. It does seem crazy to cut taxes when states are broke.</p>
<p>But in this particular case…there ain’t no tax cuts going on in Washington state. We have a legislature full of politicians that don’t cut taxes, they persistently raise them…even when they have lost a public vote, they overrule it. Our tax rates are as high as they have ever been, but revenues are down because people and businesses aren’t spending. Plus our governor, as soon as she got into office, gave the public unions a massive payraise–up to 30% (they were her biggest contributor, and they did pay for her third recount, which squeaked her into office). She got us billions of dollars into additional debt. Now, she is desperately trying to backtrack on some of it, and I do give her credit for that.</p>
<p>But the university is suffering due to low state revenues from lack of spending. Not because Washingtonians got tax cuts. They didn’t. In fact, even though our property values are down significantly, our annual property tax is higher than it has ever been. Levies keep passing, money keeps pouring in, but they have commited it to so many different projects and groups, they are overextended.</p>
<p>^^
I used to live in Seattle, and I remember that even talking about a state income tax was political suicide for any candidate or office-holder. Without an income tax, the state has a crazy quilt of sales tax, user fees, property taxes, B&O taxes (do they still have state liquor stores?), almost all of which are regressive. You’re right, this makes Washington even more vulnerable to recession than most states.</p>
<p>UDub is my alma mater, and it makes me sad to hear about what’s going on.</p>
<p>I don’t know that taxes are always the problem. Massachusetts is considered a high-tax state and it leads the nation in percent of adults with college degrees at around 49%. New Hampshire is considered a low-tax state and it’s third in the nation in percent of adults with college degrees at around 46%. Connecticut is in second place.</p>
<p>I had a discussion with a local school board member and he talked about the problems with our state in that there’s never enough money from the state and he said that we had a horrible approach in starving the beast but it’s better than the other 49 states. I didn’t agree or disagree with him but he did have a point in that nearly every state is struggling, whether they are high-tax or low-tax. Perhaps it is what you do with the money that is as important as how much you collect. Or maybe it is who you tax.</p>
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<p>We live in a low-tax state so these services were never there and you tend not to
miss things that you never had. Public higher education is available in our state but
not-so-much at the state flagship.</p>
<p>What a tiny state like NH does has nothing much to do with setting a standard for large states with actual populations in the high 7 figures who can’t suck off the private educational establishment that were developed in the early days of the country mostly in nearby states. NH is just a parasite state that allows the other nearby states to handle the more complex problems. It’s a mostly white enclave with few minorities and fewer poor minorities.</p>
<p>It has little offer as a model for larger complex states.</p>
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<p>I see that you actually did a little reading before shooting off your
mouth as you did earlier.</p>
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<p>But I guess that you didn’t do enough research.</p>
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<p>It has little offer?</p>
<p>How about MA where public university costs are comparable to those in
NH and where they are cutting state contributions to public higher ed
at a pretty fast clip?</p>
<p>So you have two systems that are quite similar in many, many ways
except that they have disparate taxation levels.</p>
<p>Perhaps having a lot of private alternatives is a way of keeping an
educated populace while keeping down state spending on higher
education.</p>
<p>barrons - You are completely off-base with respect to New Hampshire! For those who prefer high-tax bloated governments, there are probably 30-40 states to choose from. For those who prefer low taxes and lean govt, there are perhaps 5 states max.</p>
<p>NH has awesome quality of life, great job prospects, and is well-supported by the influx of highly schooled professionals from all around the expensive NE area. It’s simply a great state to live in. </p>
<p>Once size doesn’t fit all. NH may follow a different model than you prefer, but it’s a highly successful, winning model. It deserves respect and appreciation.</p>
<p>Well if this current trend of cutting education continues, our future may very well be this [Idiocracy</a> (2006) - IMDb](<a href=“http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/]Idiocracy”>Idiocracy (2006) - IMDb).</p>
<p>"I used to live in Seattle, and I remember that even talking about a state income tax was political suicide for any candidate or office-holder. Without an income tax, the state has a crazy quilt of sales tax, user fees, property taxes, B&O taxes (do they still have state liquor stores?), almost all of which are regressive. You’re right, this makes Washington even more vulnerable to recession than most states.</p>
<p>UDub is my alma mater, and it makes me sad to hear about what’s going on."</p>
<p>It makes me sad too. And worried about my kid and his classmates opportunities. And those of other students in the state who have only dreamed about going to the UW.</p>
<p>Most politicians in WA are savvy enough to not promote the state income tax. We just voted it down, once again. Though they promised it would only apply to the “rich”, even the pro-tax voters here were smart enough to know that after two years, our legislature would go back on all promises and apply it to anyone, at any rate they wanted to. No matter what we voted for. And the picture of the main supporters, Bill Gates Sr, walking hand in hand with the crowd of public union employees didn’t help the case.</p>
<p>Either way, we are not a low tax state. About #13, I believe. I can’t imagine what an income tax would have brought us up to. Sales tax is almost 10%, property tax is outrageous, B&O tax is obscene. They need to merely charge the actual cost of tuition, while giving the tuition breaks to those in need.</p>
<p>That movie, “Idiocracy” was quite terrible (yet hilarious). It really did make you think, though…is this our future?</p>