<p>I’m sorry but I really can’t take you seriously. You come in here fire breathing because your son was not accepted to the school and continue to bring up how your tax dollars should somehow entitle you and your family entrance no matter what. I mean what gives him seniority over another child who happens to live in Connecticut? Is it because he’s California raised? </p>
<p>In that case, my younger cousin should have been admitted too. Her family lives under the poverty line but she still managed a 4.0+ weighted GPA and over 200+ hours of community service and leadership events. She was denied from Berkeley but I don’t come in here criticizing the system because this state “owes it to her”.</p>
<p>Your tirades are tired and I guarantee none of this would have been brought up if he was actually admitted. Your tax dollars pay for more than just Berkeley. There are 9 other UCs and plenty of CSUs. If they’re not “good enough” for your son, then well, that’s your problem. But he’s going to a fine institution in USC so I don’t see the point of you blaming the OOS students who desire to educate themselves at the finest public university in the nation while paying private school costs.</p>
<p>Here is the link about the UVA admission stat.
[Profile</a>, Admission Information, Undergraduate Admission, U.Va.](<a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/undergradadmission/profile.html]Profile”>http://www.virginia.edu/undergradadmission/profile.html)
For some reason they displayed only the 2008 stats, but this this was back when the recession hit and OOS students already took 30% of the total admitted students. If you really want to see the 2009 and beyond, I’ll update it.</p>
<p>while you are searching, could you find some numbers when yield is included, i.e., those who actually enroll? (Acceptance rates mean little if they don’t show up.)</p>
<p>Ok, so you’re saying just shut out all OOS applicants and increase IS admits. So that takes away a little less than 1000 kids where they’ll pull 1000 more out of the 20,000 pool. What if her kid doesn’t get in then? Close the transfer pool too! No more CCC kids! They lost their chance when they went to a crappy HS, go to a CSU now!</p>
<p>Sometimes we just have to admit that maybe we’re just not able to do exactly what we want. Instead of making up excuse after excuse, just move on and better yourself through other paths.</p>
<p>…so everyone who thinks that only CA students should get into Cal: would you deny YOUR child from attending an awesome east-coast, other state or international school if they wanted to go and were lucky enough to get in? Probably not, and this is hypocritical. </p>
<p>Anyone who chooses to go to Berkeley from OOS is dedicated to his/her studies and greater future, which only enrichens the university’s environment. I’m happy to have them here and am especially grateful if they are willing to pay OOS tuition in order to be here.</p>
<p>Well, actually, I think that notion you just advanced actually speaks to a weakness in your argument. You say that parents from other states could have lobbied their legislators to upgrade their own instate colleges. Yet the same argument could have be applied to most instate parents of UC students as well. Let’s face it - taxpayer support for the UC system - and for Berkeley in particular - has not exactly been particularly lavish for decades. </p>
<p>The truth is, the glory days of Berkeley were during the 1950’s-1960’s when they were swimming in rivers of taxpayer largesse and were able to build the world-class graduate programs and accompanying worldwide prestige that has remained with Berkeley to this day. It was during that time when people associated with Berkeley were arguing with a straight face that Berkeley would eventually become the very best school in the world - better than the Ivy League, better than Oxbridge, better than MIT, certainly better than Stanford, better than anybody. </p>
<p>But that didn’t quite happen. Later California taxpayers withdrew much of their support. Berkeley never matched the heights of Harvard and was sadly surpassed by Stanford. To be sure, Berkeley is a top school, but just one of a suite of top schools in the world. It never matched the promise held forth during its golden era. </p>
<p>So, in a sense, the parents of all current Berkeley students - both instate and OOS - are living off of the glory days of the past. It was those taxpayers who had contributed to building much of the infrastructure and - far more importantly - the academic prestige that has carried Berkeley forward to this day. Recent California taxpayers have been far less forthcoming.</p>
<p>So if you happen to be descended from one of the California taxpayers from generations ago, then perhaps you could argue that your family helped build Berkeley to being what it is today. But plenty of instate students can’t say that, as their family moved to the state during the 1970’s and beyond. </p>
<p>Those families are clearly enjoying a killer deal - being able to enjoy a world-class public university without really having to pay for it, rather living off of the educational investments made in generations past. I don’t begrudge anybody taking advantage of a killer deal. But at the same time, they surely can’t claim to have a moral right to such a killer deal.</p>
<p>Well my family moved to California in 1849, so I guess I qualify based on your premise?</p>
<p>I agree with your commentary about CA taxpayers, through their elected representatives and through the choices they’ve made at the proposition box, generally shafting higher education (and all education) particularly over the past decade. That is completely clear.</p>
<p>My fundamental point is that if there are CA parents willing and capable of paying full fare tuition (meaning current out of state rates), and if the students are at least equal in academic caliber, then there should be strong preference for children from California. And the tuition structure in CA should allow for that. Why would we willingly export those kids from other states, and be perfectly fine with that, but exclude kids from CA happily? It is the University of California, isn’t it?</p>
<p>Spare me all the global, out of state diversity, and other reasons and rationales please. UC Berkeley and all the UC’s are extremely diverse socioeconomically and ethnically anyway…without having to go outside CA borders to make them so.</p>
<p>Perhaps that’s because you haven’t read my argument. I have long advocated that “families… enjoy a world-class public university” by paying for it. If the purpose is only money, then raise the tuition for instaters. Simple: more revenue to support better programs.</p>
<p>If the purpose is geographic diversity, then make the case politically. But that has not been done. The case is all about $$.</p>
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<p>Perhaps true, but my point much earlier was by doing so, I believe that California taxpayers will become less “forthcoming.”</p>
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<p>Are you just making this stuff up as a strawman? Where did I say “shut out all OOS applicants”?</p>
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<p>At $50k per year, absolutely, they ain’t going. OTOH, if the taxpayers of “awesome…other state school” wanted to support by my kids by offering merit aid, I would thank them publicly for their largesse, and be laughing at them all the way to the bank. :)</p>
<p>But it ain’t recommended if a state is broke.</p>
<p>CA residents do get preferential treatment, hence the 70% instaters. The problem with California is, that it is full of Californians. I’d prefer less Californians and more people from a state that doesn’t have the 2nd worst public education system in the country. Doing even worse than Mississippi.</p>
<p>Only 69.1 percent of the entire undergraduate are in-state in UVA for 2009-2010.
[Current</a> Enrollment, Facts at a Glance, University of Virginia](<a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/Facts/Glance_Enrollment.html]Current”>http://www.virginia.edu/Facts/Glance_Enrollment.html)
And I do wonder if this argument would happen in the first place if UCB is a mediocre school. Having 10 UC’s and even more number of CSU’s is already a gift for California when it’s hard to find more than five public universities in other states maybe except the Penn State system; you have somewhere to go in California as long as you have reasonable expectations!</p>
On this note, I’ll add that I find it extremely unfortunate that many of the UCs, including Berkeley and my own, are unwilling/unable to cover the OOS cost of tuition for many (most?) of their first year grad students.</p>
<p>When it comes between picking between Harvard and Berkeley for grad school, paying an extra $16,000 (even for one year) for Berkeley looks pretty unattractive. A graduate powerhouse that can’t manage to fully fund its students? :eek:</p>
<p>during your history lesson, some of which might even be correct, you forgot to mention that the California Master Plan for Higher Education – which was passed when some of us were in fact residents – specifically stated that graduates of OOS and other high schools would be maintained at (then) “levels”.</p>
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<p>Again, the geographic diversity argument has not been put forth by Yudof and his friends. They rationale for increasing OSS is solely state funding, or lack thereof. Should the Prez want to make the case for increased geographic diversity, let him lead with it.</p>
<p>when a university is less than 20% funded by the state they have to get their money from someplace else. this situation wouldn’t happen if california funded its higher education well. you can’t expect to continually defund a university and still have the perks in admission that have enjoyed before. the taxpayers did this. don’t blame a university for trying to survive. </p>
<p>also, i hate the notion that this year’s OOS population aren’t as smart as previous years because they admitted more. i worked my ass off to overcome one of the worst school districts in my state, i took quite a few college classes, i am very involved within my community. i have ivy league stats. i deserve to be here.</p>
<p>Actually, not quite. The California Master Plan was regarding the levels of the greater UC/CSU system. It placed no requirements onto Berkeley specifically. Berkeley could theoretically admit not a single IS student and the Master Plan would not be violated as long as the rest of the UC system were able to accommodate the stipulated levels of IS students. </p>
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<p>Sure, but let’s not put the cart before the horse. I think we all agree that California voters have been starving Berkeley of resources long before Berkeley began to admit more OOS students. Hence, while I agree that Berkeley will probably lose subsequent taxpayer support, frankly, that ship had probably already sailed anyway. It’s not as if there’s an initiative in the foreseeable future to restore Berkeley’s taxpayer funding back to what it was in the 1960’s. </p>
<p>Which leads to my next point.</p>
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<p>But come on guys, it’s hardly that simple, and you surely know it. As things stand now, the state is wrestling with possible tax increases to reduce its mammoth budget deficits - having UC raise tuition at the same time is probably a political non-starter. Heck, I seem to recall that the last time tuition was raised, protests exploded across the UC’s. Admitting more OOS students (at full price) may therefore be the most politically feasible choice at the moment. </p>
<p>Politics is, after all, the art of the possible. California taxpayers in recent times have expressed time and time again the clear sentiment that they simply don’t want to pay for a world-class higher education system. The Berkeley administration may therefore be writing off the taxpayers as a lost cause. {Heck, I probably would.} </p>
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<p>I suspect that the geographic diversity argument is actually a red herring: I would actually return back to the academic excellent argument. Again, the PhD programs provide little if any in-state admissions preference, and never have. Heck, some of those programs might go for years at a time without admitting even a single California state resident. Almost surely not coincidentally, the PhD programs are also the very programs by which Berkeley has established its worldwide reputation. {Let’s be perfectly honest, guys, the undergrad program is the weakest program at Berkeley.} </p>
<p>But obviously it’s politically uncouth to say that California IS students are not highly qualified, even though, let’s face it, the state G9-12 system is a shambles. The Berkeley administration may well have made the determination that as long as the state persists in mis-educating its high school students, they have to be more holistic in finding better admittees the way that their PhD programs do. Those OOS admittees carry the added bonus of also paying more. The geographic diversity argument may therefore well be a nice way of saying that many IS students are simply unqualified. {Just like nobody is ever ‘fat’, they’re just ‘big-boned’.} </p>
<p>I continue to ask the same questions that I’ve asked for years: why must Berkeley continue to provide strong admissions preferences to its undergrad applicants, but not to its PhD applicants? The PhD students are also attending a world-class program that was built by California taxpayers, are they not? The average PhD student costs more to educate than does the average undergrad student, so shouldn’t that imply more preference to IS PhD applicants compared to undergrad applicants, not less (or none)? Furthermore, is it merely a coincidence that the PhD programs also just so happen to be the highest regarded programs at Berkeley? </p>
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<p>Really? Assuming that you’re talking about PhD programs, I find such a policy outrageous. It is well understood that PhD students never pay for tuition - including the OOS surcharge - as all of it is supposed to be covered by a stipend. For example, Harvard might ‘nominally’ charge ~$40k ‘tuition’ to its PhD student - but then immediately turn around and pay for all of it via a PhD stipend (plus more for living costs). I believe that Berkeley, despite all of its budget woes, continues to do the same: the major difference is that Berkeley also pressures its PhD students to declare state residency quickly so as to not have to continue to cover the OOS surcharge. State residency is far more easily conferred to a PhD student because the PhD stipend establishes parental financial independence and that many PhD students are over the ‘magical’ age of 24 in any case.</p>
<p>Now, if we’re talking about other graduate programs, that may be a different story, and would have to be discussed on a case-by-case basis.</p>
<p>Mjmay7. Go read this entire thread. No one ever said anything about OOS students not deserving to be here. And I am sure you are a great and worthy student. </p>
<p>I absolutely believe that given even academics, the CA kid should get preference. Like it or not, go ahead and flame people, it’s the University of California, not the University of the lower 48. </p>
<p>See earlier post with link to report from Berkeley itself which outlines over 100 million per year that is ****ed away into the bay due to bloat, incoherent org structures, and incompetent management. People say the chase for cash is necessary because standards would decline without this effort. I say get someone in there capable of managing a hot dog stand, cut 100MM of costs, and stay true to the founding principles of the UC system. Californians first. I know that is not politically correct to say but it is our system, like it or not.</p>
<p>Yes, that ship has sailed already. Post-secondary education is of lower priority to voters and politicians compared to K-12 (D) (mandated by proposition 98), health and welfare (D), prisons (R) (mandated indirectly by “three strikes”), and lowering (or avoiding raising) taxes (R). Increasing spending on the first three (often “automatically” as in K-12 and prisons) while lowering (or avoiding raising) taxes ensures that everything else in the state budget, including post-secondary education, has to be cut.</p>