But it’s not just overall quality. It’s also that (people forget this) UC and its various campuses have their own specialties/emphases, just like private universities and colleges. Example: several years ago a student I knew turned down an MIT acceptance for a UCB CorE acceptance because her area of interest was nanotechnology, and at least at the time (and she had done her research), Berkeley was in a better position to deliver in that area than was MIT.
Another consideration, especially for STEM (including but not limited to pre-med) is facilities.
A third consideration is access to faculty members who may have done research in a particular area of the student’s interests.
So it really depends on the content and sometimes subdivision of the student’s interest(s).
@ccprofandmomof2 Yes, I agree the CCs should not just be precollege for transfer students. The CC in my area offers vocational studies, as well as successfully transferring students, but I have heard of other areas experiencing cuts. A friend of mine taught nursing in a Nor Cal program that was cut. I keep hearing people say that vocational ed should be offered (as it once was in high schools), but as you say the focus is on the university degree now.
“I think that the number of people who diss UCR is significantly higher on this forum than in the California where I live. My students would love to go to UCR. Or CalState Long Beach”
It is because of THIS WEBSITE!!! It still has all the old UCR locked threads on here (from over 10 years ago) perpetuating the FALSE STEREOTYPE that UCR Students are “Rejects” (most UC students were Rejected somewhere else!?) and anybody can get in there (totally false)!! They need to be removed!! People like to dump on the “Inland Empire” as well due to LOCATION.
The reality of UC Riverside is that they have top notch programs (many in US News Top 100) and great, diverse people! Is rapidly growing and moving up in rank! They stopped taking redirects about 10 years ago (Merced does this now but don’t worry, you are already ranked #85 for a brand new location (2018 Top Public Colleges US News) and will move up!). Average UC Riverside student stats are as follows…3.7 GPA, 27 ACT, 1190 SAT, with about a 50% student acceptance rate…definitely no walk in the park and getting tougher every year!!
UC Riverside is growing faster than ANY OTHER UC and projected to have 40,000 students in the future. Some other UC’s have peaked out in terms of population growth. Also of note…Riverside county is the third fastest growing county IN THE NATION and this is projected through the year 2065! Still has that “personal touch” with genuine, helpful, friendly people without a sense of entitlement or snobbery that some of the others have. Graduating from UC Riverside as a lifelong Highlander was one of the best decisions of my life!!
With that being said, you can also get a great education at any CSU (have heard great things about CSULB with many impacted programs) if you are focused and apply yourself. Some majors at select locations better than UC’s. However as a general rule ALL UC’s (lower, mid, and high tier) are on a higher level than Cal States with the University of California System holding national and international recognition.
Some community college graduates fare worse than others, but in general it does seem that only around half graduate in two years after they matriculate at a UC campus. I think this should be more widely known as it adds significantly to the expense of taking the often touted “cheaper” CC to UC route.
Credential creep may be moving more professions up the degree ladder.
For example:
Long time ago, one used to be able to earn a law degree without first earning a bachelor's degree in something else.
Somewhat more recently, CPA licensing started requiring *five/i years' worth of college credit including a bachelor's degree.
Occupational therapy used to be a bachelor's degree program; now it is a master's degree program.
Nursing employment appears to be trending toward stronger preference for those with bachelor's degrees in nursing compared to associates degrees in nursing.
In general, occupational licensing is increasing, probably because each time a someone providing a service scams or injures someone, there are calls for licensing for consumer protection, and incumbent service providers see it as a way to erect a barrier to entry against additional (legitimate) competition.
There is a trend of jobs requiring neither specific-to-major nor general skills that a bachelor's degree signals to require a bachelor's degree anyway.
There is good news on the vocational front in CA. A 200 million a year program was recently implemented by the state to increase vocational education offerings, 60% of money will go to CCCs.
Looking around at the transfer part of that page, it looks like the overall UC graduation rates for transfer students entering in 2012 (latest available for the full range) are:
55.1% 2-year
83.5% 3-year
88.2% 4-year
The subgroup options show that certain groups far better or worse than others in 2-year graduation rate, though the different narrows for 3-year and 4-year graduation rate. Male, black, and Pell grant students tend to have worse 2-year graduation rates, while female, international, and non-Pell-grant students tend to have better 2-year graduation rates. You can also infer things about the subgroups (for example, black students have a higher Pell / non-Pell grant ratio than overall or most other groups).
@AlbionGirl, it seems that the majority of CC transfers graduate within 3 years of entering a UC.
How many of those CC transfers who don’t finish after 2 years at a UC were in that situation because they were working and going to school PT and possibly commuting?
Also, you see a clear negative correlation between GPA and time to graduate.
So it seems that weaker students are taking longer to graduate (possibly due to dropping courses or switching majors).
“were students who had no interest in college, but they could get a good-paying job that did not require a college degree. That option no longer exists for most. Now, if you don’t go to college, you will probably end up working a minimum wage job”
Actually there is a critical shortage of labor in the skilled trades now. Plumbers, electricians, carpenters and framers easily earn 50-100 k within a couple of years of finishing an apprecticeship. This labor shortage is the #1 issue for companies in construction and home services. People are convinced they must have a college degree when in fact there is plenty of demand and money for young people for whom college might not be the best path.
For apprentices in CA who need their own tools, their minimum wage is 2x the state minimum wage. Likely that they are more employable, and can earn more money than recent college grads plus they aren’t burdened with debt. We desperately need alternative paths for young people just as we need people to build our houses and keep our lights and water on.
I am not sure that graduation rates correlates with a students ability or preparedness in alot of cases. Anecdotally speaking some part time adult college students may just have other priorities. They probably don’t see it as “ wrong” to not complete their studies in two years but are just going at a pace that best fits in with the rest of their life.
@turtletime Right. four or five times more population, and six times as many top 100 schools. And an infinite times as many of top 50 schools. My point stands.
The UCs may be an “economy class” experience at times, but your pilot may also be John Glenn at times. I look back and see I had a prof who just won the Turing Award, often referred to as the Nobel Prize for computing, for developing RISC processors which are now in all our phones. MacOS is a descendent of Berkeley Unix, which was under development and that we used as undergrads (when it was up ). An intro Anthropology professor who turns out to be world renowned and drew a standing ovation for a lecture. A sociology prof who was architect of the Mexico City Olympics protest. There is just a vibrancy and energy at some of the UCs that is really exciting. Who knows what my kids will look back on in 25-30 years and go “Wow, I remember that prof!”
However, some amount of preparation, ability, and motivation to learn is necessary to be able to learn the skills needed in those skilled trades, so it is not necessarily true that the bottom of the high school class who barely passed enough courses with D grades to graduate will be able to complete the necessary post-secondary education/apprenticeship to enter those skilled trades.
Question from @suzyQ7: “I’m not from California and frankly don’t understand why any out of state student would want to pay so much money to go to these 2 schools since the classes are so large, impacted majors, etc. I kind of get the in state thing (cost) but the kids with stats for these 2 schools could get substantial merit elsewhere. So why stay? Is it just location?”
As a parent who is paying OOS for UCLA, we chose it, in part, because my own experience as a student there 30 years ago gave us a measure of comfort. There are no guaranteed outcomes at any campus – no way to know if your child will find his/her tribe, no way to know if he or she will thrive. All you have to go on is a hunch about the campus vibe and what you read in the rankings, which are all over the place depending on the major and how much faith you put on prestige. That uncertainty made UCLA feel like a safer choice as it already gave our family a great outcome. (It’s possible to get out in four years. I did it, with two majors, and enough flex time to work two on-campus jobs and yes, we had impacted majors in the late 80s/early 90s, too).
Cal and UCLA have attracted and maintained impressive cohorts, year after year and decade after decade. There are many renown alumni in virtually every field in all corners of the world, and there’s energy/intensity in the student body. These campuses attract world-renown speakers and events. If you’re a thought leader from say Ubekistan, and you’re going to add a few college stops on your U.S. book tour, you might choose UCLA or Berkeley, for example. There is a sense that things HAPPEN on this campus. Ideas get started. Controversy and conflict break out into the open. Things are being tested and built. Things that might change the world. The campus has a worldly feel, a hoi polloi sensitivity – the international students (and professors), the mix of races, the mix of socio-economic backgrounds. This is very different than experiences at a small LAC or a deliberately elite Ivy league campus or a specialized engineering/science school. There is no one to spoon fed you opportunities, no social hand-holding, and no way to avoid the interpersonal conflicts that arise from rubbing elbows with people who don’t share your background or your money or K-12 educational privileges.
For these reasons, families find that UCLA and Berkeley are very attractive alternatives to private colleges on the East Coast. This is especially the case if they live in a state that doesn’t have a public university that rivals Cal or UCLA in reputation and the family is donut-hole, full-pay at private colleges. In those cases, paying OOS tuition is definitely worth it.
@AlbionGirl It’s SO hard to track part-time vs. full-time students accurately because it’s hard to measure intent. Our data person often complains about that. I tend to teach days at our main campus, and very few of my students have jobs. Most are 18-22, living at home with parents. I only know that because I ask them on an informal survey every term. The night students are a very different population, with many working. This varies so much from campus to campus, and from day to night student, that it’s hard to say. We have made it considerably more difficult to be part-time, though, because you have lower priority reg and fewer other student support resources if you’re part-time, so that’s a disincentive.
Having seen this from both sides, as a former adult community college student myself, and seeing my kids take advantage of concurrent enrollment I certainly believe you. Community college students come and go for all kinds of reasons. I was always amazed when people dropped out a few weeks before the end of the semester after putting in a lot of work. Perhaps they had no choice due to family commitments. The worst drop out rate in my experience was in online courses.
Would this vary by course? I’ve taken a lot of courses at Foothill College. In my Linear Algebra class, it seemed like most of the students were 18-22 year olds. I don’t know if they had jobs, but I got the impression they were attending Foothill full time and expecting to be at UCB or another UC the next year. The Spanish classes I took had much more of a diversity of students, particularly the evening classes.
In general, I thought the teaching quality at Foothill was excellent. A couple of decades ago, I took a bunch of Fashion Design classes at Canada College. Again, the teaching was excellent-- and some of the classes had extremely high workloads.
A dear friend of mine taught in the pre-nursing/health sciences dept at Butte for many years. She had a PhD in neurobio, BSN and MSN. She was tough, but much loved! Her students used to come back to tell her how well her classes had prepared them to attack the BSN program.
). An intro Anthropology professor who turns out to be world renowned and drew a standing ovation for a lecture. A sociology prof who was architect of the Mexico City Olympics protest. There is just a vibrancy and energy at some of the UCs that is really exciting. Who knows what my kids will look back on in 25-30 years and go “Wow, I remember that prof!”