<p>Colleges operate as a business (REALLY BIG BUSINESS) and must be conscious about revenues, expenses and cash flow. They must recruit students who will pay for an education while trying to meet the needs of others who require financial assistance.</p>
<p>We also know that when a disaster like Hurricane Katrina occurs, colleges can and will step in to immediately accommodate students who are totally unable to pay for their education.</p>
<p>It looks like UCLA generated $2.616 billion in revenues against ($3.186 billion - $0.698 billion) to earn a $128 million profit and $449 million total increase in net assets. <a href="http://www.accounting.ucla.edu/04annual/pdf/financial_statements.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.accounting.ucla.edu/04annual/pdf/financial_statements.pdf</a></p>
<p>And this is just one UC campus!</p>
<p>I'm sure there is data available on how much funds are generated from oos and international student tuition and fees, but I don't have time to research this right now. It's probably not much in the case of UCs, because their focus is in-state students.</p>
<p>But revenue is certainly generated from the 40,000+ applications submitted to UCLA (40,000 x $55 = $2.2 million).</p>
<p>I thought I read somewhere that more than 1/2 of USC and/or Stanford students come from oss, so revenue generation may be slightly different for those type of schools.</p>