Cal has announced a strategic review to achieve a “new normal” in the face of a “structural” budget deficits and declining state support. Cal students I’ve talked to said that the situation is already so bad that they really fear what this may involve: deteriorating facilities, reduced hours for libraries, larger classes and few courses etc. Even university faculty are questioning whether Cal can remain a “nationally ranked” university (see recent Inside Higher Ed article)…
In the wake of discussions about ending OOS financial aid and capping OOS numbers, there seems to be a concern that Cal will fill spaces with well-to-do but less able Californians instead of more highly qualified OOS students. This contrasts with the policy of Michigan, UVa and UNC to attract the best students from throughout the country in their quest to become “public Ivies”.
What are your thoughts? If you visit Cal and compare it to Michigan and UVA the difference is immediate, especially when it comes to course offerings, career services, and the condition of the buildings. Will California really allow this international gem to deteriorate?
As a CA taxpayer, I am glad that we are ending financial aid for OOS students. The UC system is supposed to be a public higher education system for CA residents. Somehow the Chancellors (or whoever makes those decisions) have somewhat lost sight of that over the years. We have more than enough exceptionally bright CA students – many of whom need FA themselves.
The question becomes for the incoming class of 2020 then, will Berkeley be worth it in light of the upcoming financial setbacks? If it comes between say, Stanford and Berkeley or perhaps a great honors college like Schreyer’s at Penn State, both of which do well financially, should the student forgo Berkeley?
How much of an impact will these cutbacks actually have?
I just visited UC Berkeley. Everyone I met made it clear that they felt the new financial aid policy was a disaster. Contrary to CalBearsMom, they said that attracting the highest quality OOS was critical to maintaining their standing. More than one person stated that those who claim that OOS students are crowding out CA students are simply unable to accept that their kids weren’t good enough to be accepted. Indeed, even with OOS admissions and FA, 70% of the students are in-state. I liked UC Berkeley but frankly would prefer a university with a national/international intake.
@Kasami From my recent visit, I’d look out of state. Even with in-state tuition, the facilities at Cal look tired and the classes were MUCH larger than I saw when I visited places like Brown, Penn or University of Virginia. Cal students also spoke about cutbacks in courses and programs. It just felt dispiriting. It was the same, if not worse, at UCLA.
Brexit99 My comment above was mostly referring to not paying FA for OOS (not that we shouldn’t admit any OOS, although a balance needs to be maintained). My opinion is that those we admit should be full pay with an OOS premium. We have plenty of socioeconomic diversity instate. We don’t need to pay scarce CA dollars to get lower income OOS (no matter how exceptional they are) to come here.
The cutbacks are because we need more $$. Somehow those nice facilities, programs, and professors have to get paid for. That’s why it doesn’t make sense to me to pay FA for OOS. We are NOT a private university like Brown, Penn, or Stanford. And perhaps we don’t have the same endowment as Virginia or Michigan (I’m speculating here). It takes $$ to run the institution. Giving more of that $$ to OOS makes no sense to me for a state public institution.
“those who claim that OOS students are crowding out CA students are simply unable to accept that their kids weren’t good enough to be accepted.”
So far both of my kids have gotten into Cal (one just yesterday :-). So it doesn’t help to make broad sweeping generalizations. I say this as a taxpayer, a Cal alum, and a born and bred Californian (and a parent). The UC system won’t run on fumes. It takes $$. And the people (and leaders) in this state have many competing, and often conflictual, priorities. Personally I would choose to direct more of the state’s $$ to the UC/CSU system because I strongly value education – but the things that I would cut to pay for it would cause an uproar with other constituencies. So there are no easy answers here. While cutting FA to OOS won’t solve all of UC’s nor CA’s budgetary problems – it seems a no brainer to me that it is at least a step in the right direction.
Furthermore middle/upper middle income CA top tier students can’t afford Brown, Penn, Stanford, or Univ of VA/Michigan/UNC/Penn State. They’re the donut hole kids – too rich for FA yet can’t afford $65,000/yr. So these comparisons are useless to them. The UC system is the bread and butter institution for these CA kids.
@calbearsmom I am a Cal graduate, and I paid California taxes for 3 decades before I moved to other state to support my HQ in California. My D is now being treated as OOS despite of the strong links we have to the golden state.
I believe this argument of In-state vs out-of-state is off target. The real issue here is the state of California is not paying its dues. This is not sustainable. If the state of California only pays for 12% of the bills, then the UC system should only commit this type of proportion as well. Why Stanford and other private schools in California can prosper while the UC system is falling apart?
@Brexit99 That’s disheartening to hear. As someone who’s OOS and has had their heart set on Berkeley the past 2 years or so, I’d hate to be disillusioned if I were given the opportunity to attend. Thanks for the input.
By the way, I would like to add one aspect. For each 1 dollar invested in Berkeley, the State of California gets back 9/8 dollars in GDP output and 13.80 dollars in additional economic output. The UC System exists to serve California, and a bankrupted UC would be a disaster to the state. Moreover, I think the idea of classifying people as “in-state” and “out-of-state” in a feud fight is quite myopic. An OOS student will eventually contribute a lot to California. Most of my OOS classmates in Cal stayed in California their entire lives. So, even from a “I paid tax” perspective is also quite myopic. By having Berkeley, Cal can attract great minds to California and by rooting them in the golden state, then collect high taxes over time. Even if Cal needs to offer scholarships to OOS or International students – this is quite a great investment. Just track how much economy greatness in California came from these students!
Citizens of California and of the world, please focus away your anger from OOS and the UC system, Just make the government of California accountable.
@CalBearsMom I’d accept your arguments if the State of California was ponying up the money. But it isn’t. And for over 30 years, California taxpayers have been content to run down their state institutions (notice the state of public libraries in California?). OOS Financial Aid doesn’t cost that much and many of those students go on to be alumni that donate. Worse yet, many of the brightest California seniors are being lured out of state. If you visit Michigan or UVA, you will be stunned at how much better their facilities are, how many more courses and faculty they have, and how welcoming they are to scholars from throughout the country and world. And unlike the UC system, their endowments have literally exploded over the past 20 years. It’s sad.
It is sad that people think that there are enough bright kids in CA for all the UCs and that standards will not suffer over time if you don’t attract talent other colleges will eagerly lap up. If that were to be true, why would 35% of the incoming UCB freshmen class be OOS? Also, the average SAT of the UCB OOS applicant pool was a full 350 points higher than the instate pool (same with ACTs, even GPAs of the OOS were marginally higher). Still believe in the there are enough bright kids in CA theory?
Going forward, most of the OOS kids will have to very deliberately underemphasize the UCs in the admissions process and many most likely will not bother applying to the UCs anymore - why even apply if you have no chance of even getting a penny? Even a penny. I am discounting merit aid since that is not significant anyways. I also expect OOS yields to fall dramatically this year and OOS applications to collapse next year onwards. Sure you will still get some of the rich OOS kids but not necessarily the academically brilliant ones.
OOS (and Intl) kids already pay huge surcharges (which can not be covered by FA) - they paid $ 400 million in surcharges during 2013-2014. Don’t you think this surcharge collection number will also collapse? There goes the 34 million offered in FA…
Besides what @DohDaD pointed out, also consider that many graduate students are attracted to the UCs because of the sheen from the undergrad rankings, desire to follow where they could not go 4 yrs ago and so on. I expect that OOS graduate apps will also start to fall with a lag and this will have a more serious impact on the UCs. PhD candidates and grad students drive the research rankings. For research universities to not be able to attract the best PhD candidates will not be a good thing. This was a politically expedient move on the part of the state legislature but like all populist moves this will hurt, a lot, in the long run. There are enough universities (UVA, Michigan etc, besides numerous private ones) happy to take every advantage to beat the UCs.
Finally, the only way they can counteract this (maybe) is perhaps by filling themselves to the brim with full pay high GPA/SAT international students when OOS enrollment falls by huge amounts. Currently international acceptance rates are just around 9%, expect to see a rapidly increasing trend on that number - you wont find enough smart kids in CA to maintain stats to maintain rankings.
“The real issue here is the state of California is not paying its dues. This is not sustainable. If the state of California only pays for 12% of the bills, then the UC system should only commit this type of proportion as well.”
Yes, I do agree that this is a problem. Although I do believe that the UC received a free land grant in the beginning as well – so you’d have to include “free rent” and anything else initially given in the inputs from the state as well.
“Why Stanford and other private schools in California can prosper while the UC system is falling apart?”
Well, Stanford charges $65,000/yr (undergrad), has an endowment of $22.2 billion, and an undergrad student population of 7,000. Berkeley charges $32,000 to residents and $57,000 to non-residents, has an endowment of $4 billion plus a land grant and 12% of its budget from the state treasury, and has an undergrad student population of 27,000. It’s a public school – not a private one. I don’t really understand all of these comparisons of UCB to private schools. As you stated above, the UC System exists to serve California. That is NOT Stanford’s mission – nor Brown’s or Penn’s.
I am, however, very interested in how UVA, UMichigan, and UNC apparently are doing things so much better in their state than we are here.
Yes, it would be interesting to see if there are any differences between the economic contributions between instate and OOS Cal students over the years (especially for those who received FA). But I’ve never heard of any such analysis.
“Cal can attract great minds to California and by rooting them in the golden state, then collect high taxes over time. Even if Cal needs to offer scholarships to OOS or International students – this is quite a great investment.” It doesn’t look like it’s worked so well given the condition that the system is now in.
@CalBearsMom Stanford has a 100% need met FA policy just like all the Ivies, almost all of the top LACs and great private universities. No one pays full fare at Stanford unless their parents make a lot and even then everyone pays what they can afford. The UCs were already a step behind with quite bad financial aid policies for OOS kids as partly reflected in their low yields. This myopic move will not save the state of CA much (might actually cost them) but will further complicate the UCs’ efforts to compete for the best talent. When you are competing with colleges that have 100% need met policies and you are like 50% need met for OOS with low resulting yields, you don’t go to 0% need met. That is asinine.
Also, ask the kids at Cal. The instate ones. They have a significantly different opinion than yours. I am aware because my nephew is at UCSD. He is instate but thinks UCSD will suffer if they are forced to relax standards to get more CA kids in and make it harder for OOS kids to attend. The UC administration is also decidedly concerned about being even more financially unattractive to OOS kids. Ask the alumni association - everyone is doom and gloom and worried. As it is with budget cuts etc, the UCs have insanely huge classes compared to some of the elite schools anyways. It is not a good idea to reduce the quality of the applicant pool or the admitted class especially at this time.
Your statements that the purpose of the UCs is to serve the state of CA first rather than competing with the Ivies also imply that you are willing to see the UCs compromise on attracting the best talent. Would you then be okay with watching the rankings and academic reputation of the UCs slip? I am sure your kid wont like that. As it is, the admissions pool is about to be diluted with a larger number of CA only kids with, as proven in my earlier post, lower stats. Do you not think US News takes average admitted SAT/GPA into account when determining rankings?
The state of CA could have simply set up more CSUs instead of further constraining the UCs. They could have also reduced their budgetary allocations to the UCs or increased the OOS surcharge a little bit to finance the OOS FA pool. The rich OOS and international kids’ parents would have paid the 5,000 extra per term - because it would not really matter and the OOS kids needing FA would still have some aid waiting.
As a practical matter, what OOS students needing financial aid can actually afford to attend UCs, other than those earning Regents’ scholarships? The Regents’ scholars (and a few rare others like Drake scholars) are the only OOS students whose scholarships/grants can cover the additional OOS tuition. The only other possibility would be those with divorced parents whose non-custodial parent is both wealthy and willing to pay (which seems like a rare case), since UCs use FAFSA only. Even so, the minimum net price for OOS (other than Regents’ scholars) is approximately in-state list price.
@ucbalumnus you are correct, many OOS kids who need FA would go to other colleges but some value the UCs more and would rather take loans (parent/kid or both) to bridge the difference say above the FA adjusted Colby college award because they believe the investment in a UC Berkeley degree will pay off more in the long run. My point is that the price differential is now going to be just too much to bridge.
This may not make any difference to a UCR/UCSC/UCM because bright OOS kids will rarely apply to them but to a UC Berkeley/LA losing some of their top stats admits will matter more as it will cause their stats to slip. Unless 3rd parties such as the Alumni associations decide to don the mantle of providing increased scholarships to OOS kids to maintain a steady flow from the rest of the country, this will be a loss to the UCs.
Also bear in mind that only the really motivated OOS kids apply to the UCs so it is a self-selecting higher stats crowd as it is compared to the CA applicant pool. UCB/UCLA get to select the cream of the brightest motivated applicant pool. Unfortunately, most OOS applicants are unaware or naive of the FA for OOS policies and only when admitted do they realize that it is better to go to a Hopkins for example (which would give some aid) and that is partly why the OOS admissions yield is so atrociously low.
OOS students never got much FA anyway so this isn’t the issue. They’re not attracted to UC 's for the FA but rather for the “brand”. So the move won’t add any significant amount to the budget and won’t harm oos students.
The larger issue is that CA’s budget has totally recovered, now has a surplus, and the state refuses to go back to 2007-level if per student funding. CA residents must demand the previous level of funding is brought back to ensure their children the international level UC 's are known for. It benefits all californians if UC 's/csu’s are properly funded.
Although I am not in California, I can’t believe the state’s complete unacknowledgement of their responsibility in the situation. It’s just not right.
As an OOS applicant, I agree that FA is not necessarily the issue for me. But if these financial woes somehow makes Berkeley less, well “Berkeley,” then I will undoubtedly be considering other options more weightily. Considering the likely overlap of acceptances for applicants between Berkeley and other name brand schools like the Ivies, it’s not unlikely that given the increasing monetary struggles, many will more frequently choose an elite private school over UCB.
The main issue is that the state, by not taking responsibility for the problem (and keep in mind that it CAN alleviate the problem if it chooses to allocate funds thus) is hurting the brand. And the UC brand is why all those full freight students who pay three times as much, choose the UC 's. If you tarnish the brand, you kill the hen that lay the golden eggs.
@kasami I totally agree the issue is Berkeley becoming “less” Berkeley. Even though I bought every piece of Berkeley shirts for my DD during the years, and she always dreamed about going to the same college as her dad, it is with some pain that we need to think this may not be the case. In terms of dollars and value, it may be much better to go to some equivalent top private school. I would not mind paying OOS tuition, but I would definitively feel not that well in knowing the UC system is treating OOS as a piggy bank – and there is so much animosity about OOS in California as well.
@Calbearsmom The mission of the UC system is to serve California. This is usually misconstrued as that UC should do everything for Californian Students. In order to serve California, like any other organization, there is a need for pragmatism. I am not denying it would be ideal the UC system could serve more Californian students, but I think it is equally counter-productive to blame the UC system for the mess the government is making. Within the mission, the UC was forced to do some sacrifices. It is not the objective for Berkeley to offer every possible spot to California students, but only within reason and means.