<p>I've been hearing a lot about UCs being drastically affected by the economic recession. I'm not disregarding that colleges all over the nation have been affected, but UCLA is a populous school. </p>
<p>Does this mean that prices of tuition may surge up severely the next few years? I am also aware of the difficulty in obtaining on campus housing and classes. I'm not the kind of student who can operate in an overpopulated atmosphere or surrounding.</p>
<p>Should I attend UCLA now? Is Cal any different?</p>
<p>My opinion: my undergraduate experience has hardly been affected by the budget cuts. There really isn’t much of a difference between my junior year and my freshman year.</p>
<p>No matter which university you attend in the USA, tuition will increase every year, whether it’s a lot or a little. That’s just the way it works thanks to inflation and the nature of the Invisible Hand.</p>
<p>Everybody is guaranteed at least 3 years of on campus housing, so no, it is not difficult to get on campus housing. Getting the specific type of housing of your choice, however, is a different story.</p>
<p>Enrolling in the classes you want depends on you and how many AP credits you have when you enter UCLA and depending on how many classes you take per quarter and if you take summer school. Simply put, the more credits you have, the higher your priority. UCLA rewards those with more credit with higher priority because UCLA wants those students to graduate faster and get out.</p>
<p>UCLA has ~35,000 undergrads and a total population of ~55,000 students, not including faculty, staff members, and campus visitors. UCLA is like a small city in itself.</p>
<p>The same goes for UC Berkeley.</p>
<p>BTW, if you are the type of person who cannot “operate” in an overpopulated atmosphere, I suggest you avoid UCLA, UC berkeley, all the UCs, USC, and every large state or private school. Small, private liberal arts school with undergraduate populations less than 2,000 students may be a better fit.</p>
<p>Yes, I am a person who while attracted to a lively atmosphere need frequent breaks of silence. Yet, put aside my personality, I was wondering if the academics are no longer as strong as once advertised and proven due to the recession and wide range of students?</p>
<p>Classes canceled? Perhaps a few. No important classes are cut.</p>
<p>5-Year Graduation? Complete myth being disseminated by non-UC students. The university is doing everything in its power to encourage students to graduate early.</p>
<p>hellogoodbye893: What do you mean by “academics less strong”? What about budget cuts would make the academics less strong? Would the teachers stop challenging the students as much? Is each freshman class getting stupider? (No)</p>
<p>UCLA still has top professors and top students…it’s not like they just made all the academics easier or something.</p>
<p>But I’m not being sarcastic or mean or anything. What effects do you feel that budget cuts would have on academics?</p>
<p>no it doesn’t. UCLA has around 25,000 undergrads, and around 10,000 grad students.</p>
<p>UCLA has a shi tton of students nonetheless though. Walking when people get out of class feels like walking at a concert or something, because everyone’s just chilling or going to their next class. It should also be noted that while UCLA has 25k undergrads, around 60% of the commute, so they aren’t there most of the time.</p>
<p>I’m just finishing up my first year, and i haven’t been too affected by the cuts. A few classes might have been cut that i would have liked to take, but nothing essential or important. We still have world-class faculty, and top-tier academics.</p>
<p>@arcadefire1027: I believe that your blatant rhetorical questions contradict your tone or sarcasm. Besides that, with professors being fired and budget cuts on facilities, could this not affect the learning environment? What’s the quality of teacher aids? I would be glad to hear that the academics is still at its peak, but I want explanations.</p>
<p>Is UCLA’s economic status different from Cal in any way and how?</p>
<p>The best school in the nation’s second largest city. (Cal Tech = a one dimensional wonder) Only if LA becomes irrelevant should you start to worry.</p>
<p>I think Arcadefire’s response was appropriate. Your questions are certainly open to debate and it sounds as if that is what you wanted, especially based on your follow-up questions.</p>
<p>Top professors aren’t being fired. Academics aren’t getting compromised. Our Governor understands the importance of California’s top notch public educational system. He was a classics major at Cal. He, during his prior tenure (when I was going to UCLA) and his father before him were strong advocates for the UC system, as well as the Cal State system. If you are seriously interested in going to either UCLA or Cal, you should be asking the adminstrators of the departments of the fields you are interested in at the respective UCs these questions, rather than coming to these message boards. They have the facts that may provide you with the explanation you desire. Here, there is mostly opinion and speculation – whether supported by facts or not. If you want facts, go to the source.</p>
<p>The UC system is tied together so, probably not to your last question.</p>
Cal has a bigger endowment than UCLA (2.34 billion vs 1.8 billion in 2009) but both are rather small compared to other universities or relative to the cost of their operations. Cal is able to attract more OOS and international students than UCLA. </p>
<p>UCLA gets more donations (I think) because Cal does not have a med school. UCLA has a significantly higher operating budget than Cal because of the med school and so we have more room to maneuver our finances. (3.39 billion vs 1.59 billion in 2008). Also, I hear Cal has to worry about aging infrastructure but I’m unsure if it’s true. Their university covers much more area than ours.</p>
<p>You really couldn’t tell there was a recession with all the construction going on, though. -.-</p>
<p>Plus how many funds is the stadium renovation at UCB going to gobble up?</p>
<p>Lawerence Livermore (part of UCB…somehow) contracts maybe equal to the money the UCLA medical school takes in. Not sure how it is dispursed though.</p>
<p>To the OP: it sounds like you have your mind made up already. if you are that worried about budget cuts affecting your educational experience, go to a private school.</p>
<p>as everyone else said, budget cuts really haven’t affected our experience that much. CAL and UCLA are in the same situation as public schools. both are still considerably cheaper than attending a private university. have you actually visited both campuses? </p>
<p>UCLA has a lot of students, but like someone else noted, many students commute so its not like walking through campus is a constant sea of people all day. CAL is bigger with around the same number of students, but if you really want to find an economic difference, you could argue that there are probably a larger number of transients wandering at CAL now because of the recession.</p>
<p>CAL is cutting many of its sports programs too (gymnastics, baseball, rugby, etc) which is quite sad.</p>
<p>hellogoodbye: I didn’t ask a blatant rhetorical question. I wanted to know what effect you thought budget cuts were having, so I could comment on your thoughts. I didn’t think my response was all that nasty or sarcastic. Anywho…</p>
<p>“Besides that, with professors being fired and budget cuts on facilities, could this not affect the learning environment?”</p>
<p>I haven’t personally noticed this happening. My teachers are great and the facilities are fine. </p>
<p>“What’s the quality of teacher aids?”</p>
<p>TA’s are going to vary widely, and this is true at any university. TA’s are just grad students usually. Some of them are going to be good at teaching, and others not so much. I doubt that any school could claim that all their TA’s are good. With that said, UCLA has many very strong grad programs. Your TA’s will likely all be very smart.</p>
<p>Wow I apologize. I got the numbers mixed up. Clearly when I wrote 35,000, I was thinking of the undergrad + grad population (which really is ~35k) and when I wrote 55,000, I was thinking of the number of how many applications UCLA receives a year (which really is ~55k).</p>
<p>Sorry about that. UCLA has ~25,000 undergrads, ~10,000 grads, and a total student population of about ~35,000.</p>
<p>I have to disagree. I’ve seen some drastic changes during my time here. I’m a fourth-year, so I saw everything well before the budget cuts and can really see a difference. Top teachers are not being fired, but many of them are leaving the university because private schools are making them offers of higher pay and stable benefits (since the UC benefits package is undergoing major changes).</p>
<p>A LOT of classes in my department (history) have been cancelled. They start out listed under the registrar’s schedule of classes, but then get cancelled a few days later. I’ve seen the same in a few other departments. Many languages aren’t offered at earlier levels year-round, which means you have to start a language fall quarter, and if it doesn’t fit in your schedule, you have to wait until the next year.</p>
<p>Library hours and facilities have been threatened, and who knows what will happen next year, since the UC will potentially receive a $1 billion cut. If the full cut goes through, it’s hard to imagine no fee increase. The regents have been talking about raising fees by 10% every year for the next 4-5 years. Sure, inflation has gone up, but UC fees have increased 6 times the rate of inflation.</p>
<p>More students face high loan debts when they graduate, which means they need to find high-paying jobs rather than jobs that serve the public (odd, given how much civic engagement is prized here at UCLA). Tutoring programs are being cut. </p>
<p>I’m not saying it’s not a fantastic place to go to school. I’ve truly loved everything about UCLA. BUT - you wanted to know if the crazy budget crisis is negatively affecting academics. The answer is yes, though the school is doing its best to keep students from bearing the qualitative brunt of the changes, the quality is decreasing and will likely contine its trajectory until the Sacramento sorts out its issues. And financially, students are definitely being negatively affected.</p>
<p>This, more than anything, is going to hurt the UC in the long run. I expect a serious rebuilding period in the next few decades as good professors leave, taking graduate students and grad pull with them.</p>
<p>I’m seriously worried about a lot of big name programs at both UCLA and Cal in the near and long-term future.</p>
<p>On the other hand, will this hurt undergrad experiences? Probably not much. Still, if the OP wants quiet, UCLA is not the place to be.</p>
<p>I’m a mid-sized city Socal female. Being in a city like LA won’t faze me much since I do enjoy liveliness as long as I can take an occasional break from it. I guess I should clarify “quiet” as a good working environment with qualified mentors, facilities, and space and a classroom without over 50 students crammed in small desks.</p>
<p>What I’m most concerned about is my stay for the next 4 years. I would never say that UCLA is a place of bad education; I certainly would not have applied and been ecstatic for my acceptance if that were my belief.</p>