In Fall 1992, total undergrad enrollment at UC Berkeley was 21853. In Fall 2013, total undergrad enrollment at UC Berkeley was 25951. So, over the course of 21 years, just under 4100 seats opened to students, despite the continual growth of the state. When UC Berkeley favors out of state students for what are, essentially, the same number of slots as were available over two decades ago, that really does impact California students. These statistics are very similar for every UC campus. As a native Californian, now living in the south, the irony of my kids receiving brochures from UCLA, for example, was not missed. I knew that my son would have a much greater chance of getting into UC Berkeley had he applied, a significantly greater chance than I had back in the late 80s as I considered California schools as a native-born Californian. And there was only one reason for this: Cal would have wanted our money. That’s it. For a very brief moment, my 18-year-old high school self was tempted to encourage my son to apply - it brought back memories of my friends and I all considering applying to Berkeley, despite the long odds that existed back then. Then, I came to my senses and I knew I was not crazy enough to pay the $27K out of state tuition differential on top of regular tuition to a public university in my home state, not even to Berkeley, or UCLA, or any of them. Not to mention the outrageous cost of living out there, something I purposely escaped from years ago.
What bugged me the most about the NYT article is how superficial it is. To put UC Berkeley and the University of Alabama in the same boat when it comes to this question of in-state residents being robbed of their rightful slots at the state universities seems ridiculous to me. The circumstances do not warrant such a comparison, and it would not have taken much time to figure this out…
Alabama’s student enrollment has grown exponentially. In Fall 2006, there were 19470 undergrads enrolled. In Fall 2015, there were 29531. Over 10,000 slots have opened for additional students in just nine years. Amazing. Out of state students like my son are not taking seats away from in-state students, as is happening in California. Rather, they are taking new seats that have been created by Alabama’s aggressive, ambitious growth plans. Yes, my son is attending on a full tuition scholarship, but out of state tuition is only $14K more per year than in-state. An in-state student receiving the same scholarship as a freshman gets $10170 written off the bill, my son gets $26950 written off of his, so the university “spends” $14K to recruit students like my son. To offset that expense, students like my son live in Honors housing (I paid $17600K over the last two years, now ending as he moves off campus and a local landlord now gets the economic boost), and they buy the meal plans (I paid over $3K a year for two years, thankfully that is ending, but those dollars supported local jobs, and now his food dollars will go to the community even more directly.)
Without that scholarship, my son would not have headed to Tuscaloosa. No doubt about it. We could not have afforded Alabama without that scholarship. But, thanks to that scholarship, which was awarded based on academic merit rather than our adjusted gross income, he was able to get out of Florida, and gets to attend a great public university, and is pursuing his dreams without taking on crazy debt. In exchange, the University of Alabama is bringing in talented students from all over the country to attend school with the talented in-state students who were already attending.
As to whether enough recruitment is aimed at talented students attending Central High School, I have no idea. My son has worked on projects assisting the community, and he is well aware of struggles his clients face, and he has become quite aware about how government policy is often a great enemy interfering with his clients’ prosperity and pursuit of the American Dream, along with an unchallenged comfort with the status quo. What I do think is that the influx of out of state students may be a great help to Tuscaloosa in ways beyond the flow of money sparking all of the retail building. There is a lot of work to be done in Tuscaloosa - the extremes are too extreme, the poverty still too prevalent, some of the old ways that should have gone away a long time ago still exist. But with all of these new eyes and new points of view coming in to the area via the university, perhaps change will happen more quickly and benefit all of the residents of Tuscaloosa County. There’s potential for a lot of signifcant change all around, and this is where the University of Alabama’s “investment” in recruiting top students and luring them with scholarship money makes it worth it. Berkeley, despite its prestige and history, and as a repository of some of the greatest minds ever, has not been able to prevent or fix what goes on right outside its campus in Oakland, and beyond. There is a real crisis going on in the Bay Area, as income disparity accelerates to such a degree far beyond what it has ever been. Nothing has changed for the better in regards to this for decades now, and it is just getting worse.
As an outsider who appreciates some aspects of the unique culture of the south, I guess my only concern would be that, as more and more students from out of state arrive and don’t share some of the best of the traditional ways, some of the uniqueness of the university would disappear. Attending the University of Alabama should be at least a slightly different experience than attending a school out west, and I hope that out of state students take the time to get out into the community to discover what makes Tuscaloosa, and the state of Alabama, unique.
