<p>It typically costs about $11,000 to educate a child - if you have two or three kids, your costs to the city are $20K to $30K. Businesses and those without kids and those that don’t use the public schools help to lower costs but cities (and states through education aid) have to pay their bills.</p>
<p>CA property taxes are paid to the county. The state gets most of its funding from income taxes and most of that from the wealthy. Since the income of the wealthy fluctuates a lot in a recession i.e. no capital gains, etc. the state really suffers. </p>
<p>We also have add-ons to our property tax bill for bond issues. (Those who don’t own property seem to think that voting for bond measures are somehow free). Much of this went to the community college system which was promptly wasted by contractors who were relatives of people on the community college boards who couldn’t build a stable structure to save their lives. One bell tower was so badly built it had to come down.</p>
<p>My point about property taxes in Calif-
“The new buyer of a million dollar property in Calif would pay $20,000 in state property taxes. This is considered LOW?”
was in response to performersmom statement that taxes in Calif are LOW- and I quote “Housing prices in CA are high BECAUSE taxes are so low”, which is false.
Perhaps $20,000 in property taxes is considered “average” , but it certainly is not low. And as Blue has pointed out , adding in state sales taxes and state income taxes and no one can say that taxes in Calif are low.</p>
<p>Perhaps the tax rate is low - in terms of say, the tax rate per $1,000 of assessed value.</p>
<p>BTW, typical property taxes in my town are around $8,000. We don’t have sales taxes nor property taxes. So I’d say that overall taxes in our state are low.</p>
<p>Moreover, school funding in CA is a convoluted and complicated mess. It is not a simple you pay X in property taxes in a certain county and the school district gets X. My county ends up subsidizing others (especially central CA and LA district). We end up with extra assessments to support our local school districts, high school districts, and community college districts.</p>
<p>I think the thread title is a bit misleading. California isn’t allowed to consider race in its applications. (Which is one of the reasons it has one of the lowest rates of black enrollment in the country, along with Michigan) Everyone in CA is being shut out, not just Asians.</p>
<p>^^Actually, K12 funding in California is rather easy to understand. After Prop 13 passed, the Counties – and schools – took a multi-billion dollar hit. Since the state at that time had a $7 billion surplus – yeah, you read that right – it offered to bail out the schools and counties (the former and now current Governor Jerry Brown). Those schools that were profligate at the time received the most money. They still do. Those schools that were running on a shoestring at that time received much less from the state. </p>
<p>The Legislature refuses to adjust the inequitable formulas because it would mean the current ‘haves’ would receive less so the ‘have-nots’ would receive more (“equalization funds”). And since the current ‘haves’ are politically connected, the Legislature does nothing. Simple, really.</p>
<p>btw: Mill Valley Schools, in Barbara Boxer’s former 'hood receives more than $20k from the state for each one of its already wealthy student body, or 5 times that of many other school districts. Everyone in Sacramento is well aware of this little nugget, but no one will do anything about it. No need, since the masses are re-elected each and every year. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>People who bemoan Prop 13 forget that the state having a huge revenue surplus was only half of the equation that drove the tax revolt. The other half was the system of property valuation for tax assessment purposes. </p>
<p>Back then the state revalued every house every year based on what its neighbors’ houses were selling for. The housing market was in one of its cyclical white-hot inflationary periods, and so the property tax rates were going through the roof. What this produced was retirees and widows being forced out of houses they had already paid for because they could no longer afford the property taxes. </p>
<p>People who intended to stay in their homes were getting no advantage from the inflated home values. Their neighbors who sold may have gotten a windfall. All the poor retirees who stayed put got was a huge tax bill. Couple a huge, unfair tax bite being put on retirees with the state already holding 7 billion more dollars than it needs and you’ve got the makings of a tax revolt.</p>
<p>Prop 13 put a stop to all that nonsense by limiting the amount of increase the assessor could impose each year, unless the house was actually sold. Then it could be assessed at full market value. The tax law quit punishing people for staying in their houses long term. It made it so you got taxed on the real estate inflation windfall only if you actually realized it.</p>
<p>I’m all for restoring some sensible level of funding to public schools and the taxes to go with it. I’m willing to pay my fair share. But I do not favor return to the days where widows lose their homes that they’ve already paid for every time the housing market heats up.</p>
<p>Many states have property tax freezes for seniors to counteract the situation of widows losing their homes to rising taxes.</p>
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<p>That is ridiculous. CA has no dearth of qualified in-state applicants. Talk about alienating the CA taxpayer further. Which Californians in their right mind would want to increase taxpayer funding to an institution that educates OOS, internationals and illegal immigrants to the detriment of lawful CA residents?</p>
<p>If the issue is purely $$, then those OOS/international seats ought to be auctioned to the highest bidder in-state applicants who meet a minimum GPA/SAT standard, opening with a minimum bid of $52K or whatever the OOS rate is.</p>
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<p>The Proposition 13 limit on increases of assessed value was 2% per year since last sale, which was much less than the CPI inflation rate at the time.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, California voters also passed mandatory spending measures like Proposition 98 (K-12 funding) and Proposition 184 (three strikes sentencing, resulting in greatly increased prison spending). Bond measures that increase the debt service costs also tend to pass easily.</p>
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<p>Given the continuing defunding of UC over the years, UC appears to know that there is no hope of winning back any support from the California taxpayer in the future, regardless of what it does.</p>
<p>" California isn’t allowed to consider race in its applications. (Which is one of the reasons it has one of the lowest rates of black enrollment in the country,"</p>
<p>So black people can’t compete with other races?</p>
<p>I think you are reading too much into it.:)</p>
<p>I thought that the race issue applied to all states.</p>
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Assuming the external applicants are being subsidized, what you’re saying makes sense. If the numbers are such that the msrp payers are more than covering their cost, it’s to the benefit of the locals to have more of them because the profits can offset the deficit generated by the instaters. </p>
<p>It would be nice to have it more transparent, though - x places at in-state cost, and y at sticker price, with instaters being permitted to come through the external quota if their stats don’t qualify them for instate, but do in the full-price field.</p>
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<p>Especially considering California is only covering around 11% of UC’s expenses. If that’s the case, no wonder there’s a greater drive to bring in OOS/international students. If California residents want to have the majority of UC seats go to in-state students…their state government must be willing to cover far more than 11%. </p>
<p>Otherwise, that’s not to far removed from a troublesome cheapskate customer feeling overentitled outrage when an institution decides to place more concentration on serving more reasonably paying and less troublesome customers/constituents.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. They can simply raise tuition. Is there any evidence that there are not enough CA residents willing to pay more to attend Cal or UCLA, (or any of the other campuses, for that matter)? I’ve never seen it. We hear a lot of screaming and yelling in the media when UC tuition increases, but so what? That complaining has nothing to do with whether there is a vibrant demand in state to pay more for the opportunity to attend those universities.</p>
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<p>I like this idea.</p>
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<p>The higher-end UCs could certainly fill all the seats with Californians even with a substantial tuition increase. But what they will get is a quite different mix of Californians than what they currently hope for. The higher the in-state tuition goes the more dumb but rich and the fewer smart but poor Californians they will enroll.</p>
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<p>I don’t believe this. Where is your evidence? Off the top of my head, I can think of full-pay students from our high school who were shut out of either or both of Cal and UCLA and are attending Georgetown, Yale and Boston College (this one was a val). Not even close to dumb.</p>
<p>UCLA and Cal make significant non-sensical admissions decisions.</p>