NYTimes highlights impact of UC budget cuts

[sakky]

<p>

Some people are more than willing to pay for a UC education…often if money isn’t an issue. Just looking at my international roommate, whose parents will easily hop on a plane from Dubai without a care for the price.

</p>

<p>I agree - and that may offer one escape from the current mess. Whatever other problems Berkeley may have, nobody can dispute that Berkeley’s international brand name is magnetic, especially in Asia. Hence, why not admit and charge an exorbitant price to rich Asian nationals, particularly the ones who aren’t good enough to get into the top private schools, but who still want to associate themselves with a prestigious brand name? In the next few years, China and India may surpass the United States in the number of total millionaires in the population if they haven’t done so already, with the US suffering heavily from the recession, but Asia escaping relatively unscathed. Surely many of them would happily pay through the nose for an educational experience at a US school that, however painful its current budgetary problems may be, still boasts of a brand name that is well-recognized in their home countries, and in one of the most pleasant, culturally diverse, and Asian-prolific areas in the country - i.e. we’re not asking them to spend years in New Haven or, for God’s sake, upstate New York. </p>

<p>Heck, you may not even really need to offer admissions to those rich Asians. Plenty of hay can be sown through offering high-priced open admission executive education and other non-degree programs to rich Asians who want to visit the Bay Area while saying that they ‘studied’ at Berkeley, even if they never earn a Berkeley degree. Berkeley already offer an open-admission Summer Session; why not develop a luxury version for rich foreigners? The most difficult aspect of developing a luxury good is the cultivation of the brand name, but Berkeley already has a luxury brand (among Asians), so why not leverage it?</p>

[sakky]

<p>

the problem is that the state does not have enough money and Berkeley needs a substantial amount of money to operate like a first-class university. how are you going to solve Berkeley’s problem having that in mind?

</p>

<p>Let me offer another idea: milk the alumni pool to expand the endowment. </p>

<p>Infeasible, some might say? Then I would ask, why is it that the University of Michigan has been able to enjoy the highest endowment growth rate over at least the last 2 decades of any large US university by far? While UM is a fine school, I find it inconceivable that UM alumni have been outperforming Berkeley alumni economically over the last 2 decades, especially given the anemic state of the domestic auto industry since the 1970’s. Yet the fact remains that, starting from a miniscule base, UM now has a significantly larger endowment than Berkeley does, both on an absolute and per-capita basis. Heck, the Ann Arbor campus alone has a greater endowment than does the entire University of California system.</p>

[RML]

<p>^ Haas has an almost 50% alumni participation in terms of monetary donations. If Haas can do it, why can’t the other colleges do the same? I think each college has to organize that rather than the whole university given Berkeley’s size.</p>

<p>

Hence, why not admit and charge an exorbitant price to rich Asian nationals, particularly the ones who aren’t good enough to get into the top private schools, but who still want to associate themselves with a prestigious brand name?

</p>

<p>What about the Europeans and the South Americans where Berkeley is also considered a top school. Berkeley is quite a prestigious name in France, Italy, Spain, Russia, Germany and the UK. People in the UK can’t draw a distinction between a Yale or Stanford degree, for instance, and a Berkeley degree. Look at percentage of European students at Berkeley - it’s certainly one of the highest amongst the international students. The French community in Berkeley campus, for instance, is large and thriving. Some of the smartest French (mostly from Sorbonne, HEC, </p>

[sakky]

<p>

[quote]
What about the Europeans and the South Americans where Berkeley is also considered a top school. Berkeley is quite a prestigious name in France, Italy, Spain, Russia, Germany and the UK. People in the UK can’t draw a distinction between a Yale or Stanford degree, for instance, and a Berkeley degree. Look at percentage of European students at Berkeley - it’s certainly one of the highest amongst the international students. The French community in Berkeley campus, for instance, is large and thriving. Some of the smartest French (mostly from Sorbonne, HEC, </p>

[sakky]

<p>

DougK, you can’t be serious. I’ve known numerous grad students and postdocs - very smart ones, I might add- here at Berkeley who completed their undergrad education at those “lesser” schools you mentioned. You’ll find plenty of people, wherever you go, who take their education seriously.

</p>

<p>Well, the one does not follow the other. You don’t need to attend an undergrad program that is attached to a university with a large research apparatus in order to become a successful grad student in the future. Plenty of highly successful grad students come from LAC’s where the research component is miniscule. Nobody would accuse the students at the LAC’s of not taking their studies seriously. Similarly, there are plenty of students from the CalStates who become successful grad students and post-docs at Berkeley and other top research universities. </p>

<p>The truth is that DougK is right: the lower UC’s really don’t produce much high-quality research and their status as large-scale research institutions should be debated as a potential luxury that the state may no longer be able to afford.</p>

[RML]

<p>sakky,</p>

<p>I am one of those many Berkeley rejects but not at places like Columbia, Duke, Cornell, UPenn, Mudd and a few others. At the time when I applied to Berkeley, the admit rate was something like 7%. Back then (approximately 10 years ago), I couldn’t distinguish whether Stanford is more prestigious than Berkeley. I believe that up until last year, Berkeley’s admission rate for international students is very close to HYPSM. Up until last year, or maybe 2 years ago, the caliber of students admitted to Cal is similar to those students admitted to lower ivies and some is on par with those students admitted to HYPSM. Again, I’m talking about international students admitted to Cal up until last year or two years ago. You can ask some international students you know how extremely competitive Cal was for international students was. I think the reason why Berkeley’s enrollment yield for Int’l is low is because Berkeley does not offer merit based scholarship to Int’l students. Plus, Berkeley does not have any representative that takes care of those who apply and accepted to the university. HYPSM, ivies, Duke, Rice, WUSL and the like have someone who sees that their applicants are accommodated and their questions are answered correctly. If Berkeley can work out on that specific area, Berkeley does not need to lower the standard of its admitted students. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of St Andrews University in Scotland. But outside of the US, it has a somewhat solid name because they have a brigade of college counselors that travel around the world and take care of their applicants. If Berkeley can do the same, I can’t find any reason why would those students would rather attend St Andrews instead of Berkeley. </p>

<p>About Oxbridge, I actually attended Girton College. Though I though it was a prestigious college and Cambridge is world-class and my experience there was certainly worthwhile, I was still thinking that my college experience would still have been different - and better - had I went to Berkeley instead. You’d be surprised that many Cambridge students would want to study in Berkeley, only that many of them can’t afford it. Not everyone at Cambridge is rich and Berkeley is notoriously expensive. When I was at Cambridge, I saw the list of Cambridge students who were taking a year off as exchange students. The list isn’t accessible through the internet so I can’t provide you a link to it, but it’s there. Of course, those schools in Europe had the most number of applicants because they’re cheaper. But for America, Berkeley was top 3 in the list, next after Columbia and Harvard. MIT was 4th, Stanford was 5th and UCLA was 6th. </p>

<p>

I don’t see how it would be detrimental to admit internationals who couldn’t get into the top private schools. Let’s face it. Most current Berkeley undergrads couldn’t get into the top private schools, for if they did, they probably would have gone there instead

</p>

<p>I’m not sure if there would be more “A” type of students who would rather go to Duke engineering, for instance, than Berkeley engineering. For other programs, maybe. Let’s face it. Berkeley is still expensive for In-State students despite the discounted price charged to IS students. What Berkeley lacks is generosity, or perhaps its ability to compete in scholarship privileges. If Berkeley will compete with those what private schools offer, Berkeley can win in the cross-admit war against top privates especially for those who are seeking engineering degrees, Haas, BME and computer science. Again, I think the very reason why Berkeley’s yield rate for OOS is low is because of its inability to compete in scholarship grants. Yield rate has very little correlation with prestige. Of course, it has correlation, but money is certainly also a big draw for yield. Even Harvard’s enrollment yield will suffer considerably when it will remove its scholarship grants. Who would go for $55k per yr at Harvard when he has a full ride plus stipend at Yale or Princeton? Similarly, who would go for Columbia Eng’g or UPenn Eng’g when he has a full ride at Berkeley? Again, a full ride, not partial discounts.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

I believe that up until last year, Berkeley’s admission rate for international students is very close to HYPSM. Up until last year, or maybe 2 years ago, the caliber of students admitted to Cal is similar to those students admitted to lower ivies and some is on par with those students admitted to HYPSM. Again, I’m talking about international students admitted to Cal up until last year or two years ago. You can ask some international students you know how extremely competitive Cal was for international students was.

</p>

<p>That is, unfortunately, irrelevant, however competitive international admissions may be at Berkeley, for the fact is, over 90% of Berkeley’s undergrads are in-state residents who were admitted under the easiest admissions regime that Berkeley conducts. Nor do employers or grad schools credit international students for surviving a more stringent admissions process - they will judge you no differently from any other Berkeley alumni. </p>

<p>I therefore see no harm in admitting full-price-bearing international students whose quality is no worse than that of most of the students who are admitted now. </p>

<p>

I think the reason why Berkeley’s enrollment yield for Int’l is low is because Berkeley does not offer merit based scholarship to Int’l students.

</p>

<p>Nor would Berkeley be offering merit-based scholarships to the targeted full-price-bearing international admits under my proposal. The whole point is to rebuild Berkeley’s coffers. Like I said, surely plenty of rich Asians (and potentially some rich Europeans and South Americans also) would like to study at a name-brand US university but simply aren’t good enough to be admitted to the top private schools such as HYPSM. Berkeley should be able to gorge on those students. </p>

<p>

I’m not sure if there would be more “A” type of students who would rather go to Duke engineering, for instance, than Berkeley engineering. For other programs, maybe.

</p>

<p>The vast majority of Berkeley undergrads are not engineers. </p>

<p>More importantly, Berkeley’s overall yield rate hovers around 40%; hence 60% of Berkeley’s admits prefer to go elsewhere. {Some have argued that many of them prefer UCLA, but that just begs the question: why can’t Berkeley be more competitive against UCLA? Other than the UCLA School of TFT, how many programs does UCLA have that are actually better than Berkeley’s?} </p>

<p>

If Berkeley will compete with those what private schools offer, Berkeley can win in the cross-admit war against top privates especially for those who are seeking engineering degrees, Haas, BME and computer science. Again, I think the very reason why Berkeley’s yield rate for OOS is low is because of its inability to compete in scholarship grants. Yield rate has very little correlation with prestige. Of course, it has correlation, but money is certainly also a big draw for yield. Even Harvard’s enrollment yield will suffer considerably when it will remove its scholarship grants. Who would go for $55k per yr at Harvard when he has a full ride plus stipend at Yale or Princeton? Similarly, who would go for Columbia Eng’g or UPenn Eng’g when he has a full ride at Berkeley? Again, a full ride, not partial discounts.

</p>

<p>Uh, the whole point of my proposal is for Berkeley to rebuild its financial position - so how exactly is Berkeley supposed to do that while offering full rides? What Berkeley needs is more students, i.e. rich, prestige-mongering internationals, paying full fare. </p>

<p>

Even Harvard’s enrollment yield will suffer considerably when it will remove its scholarship grants. Who would go for $55k per yr at Harvard when he has a full ride plus stipend at Yale or Princeton? Similarly, who would go for Columbia Eng’g or UPenn Eng’g when he has a full ride at Berkeley? Again, a full ride, not partial discounts.

</p>

<p>Uh, exactly why would Harvard stop offering scholarship grants anyway, while Princeton and Yale persist? All 3 schools have suffered roughly the same endowment percentage decline (~25% for Princeton, 27% for Harvard, and, most of all, 30% for Yale). </p>

<p>Similarly, again, why would Berkeley continue to provide full rides, or, heck, rides of any kind, while Columbia and Penn stop? Berkeley’s financial distress is more acute than Columbia’s or Penn’s.</p>

[RML]

<p>sakky,</p>

<p>I wasn’t saying that Berkeley would provide a full-ride to all deserving admitted students. But offering a full-ride to Berkeley’s top 200 applicants and call them as - Berkeley Scholars or something, would certainly not hurt Berkeley’s bank account and prestige. In fact, I would surmise that it would even boost Berkeley’s image as the scheme is like sending a message to the world that Berkeley is willing to compete in the yield war for the best students regardless of the students’ location/origin. I think that’s one of the reasons of Haas’ MBA program’s success. My friend who’s now in Haas has told me that 17 from the class of 2010 have also been admitted to Stanford GSB and a few at HBS but chose Haas. 10 of those have a full-ride based on merit which Haas provides to the top applicants. If Haas would not have given them a full ride, those 10 would probably have gone to Stanford or HBS. If Haas will continue to do that, it would increase it’s reputation even more in the future. And 10 full scholars for Haas wouldn’t hurt Haas’ finances. </p>

<p>If you propose that Berkeley becomes less selective, it would hurt its image in the long run and those super smart students wouldn’t apply there anymore as they would no longer see Berkeley as a school for the smart/talented but for the rich but average learners. Berkeley would become a Santa Clara or USC, if Berkeley is lucky. Thus I still think that Berkeley has to maintain its high selectivity, and at the same time, employ staff that would help attract more OOS and Int’l students (sort of like marketing staff for the university) and provide a full-ride to a selected students (maybe the top 200 Berkeley applicants) and honor them for that so that those that have been offered with the scholarship will certainly feel proud about it. Berkeley can also tap UCSF and together offer joint or integrated programs such as a direct entry to UCSF. Normally, programs such as this one is offered one year less than the normal route. Thus those students who are admitted have 2 solid reason for enrolling. Berkeley can also offer a direct entry to Boalt and programs like that. There are many things that Berkeley can do to become even more attractive. These are the things that Berkeley must concentrate on to become even more attractive.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

If you propose that Berkeley becomes less selective,

</p>

<p>I am not proposing that Berkeley be any less selective than it is now. Like I said, Berkeley already admits students of (relatively) questionable ability, and has done so for decades. Right now, Berkeley (shockingly) already admits a higher percentage of applicants than UCLA does. </p>

<p>

it would hurt its image in the long run and those super smart students wouldn’t apply there anymore as they would no longer see Berkeley as a school for the smart/talented

</p>

<p>Again, that happens right now. Let’s face it - of all California high school seniors (which comprise the great bulk of all Berkeley applicants), the most talented do not really want to go to Berkeley, but instead strongly prefer schools such as Stanford. </p>

<p>Now, if you’re proposing that Berkeley become far more selective as a whole, then that sounds similar to ideas that I have proposed in the past and still support. In fact, I have proposed several times that Berkeley’s undergrad program, ideally, should be just as selective, perhaps even more so, than its graduate program. {Compare that with the master’s programs at Stanford or Harvard, many of which are certainly easier to gain admission to than the undergrad program.} However, such a dramatic boost in selectivity would have to occur across the board, and would especially have to fall upon the state residents that comprise over 90% of the undergrad population. For that reason, I’m not holding my breath waiting for that reform to be enacted. If Wheeler Hall is stormed in response to a hike in fees which, frankly, only renders Berkeley’s costs to be comparable to the instate tuition of University of Michigan, a school not as good as Berkeley, imagine the firestorm of protest engendered if Berkeley were to substantially enhance undergraduate selectivity due to the ‘reduction of access’. {Ironically, Berkeley PhD programs are amongst the most selective in the world, yet you never hear of PhD students overtaking campus property to protest the ‘lack of access’ to the PhD programs.} </p>

<p>

There are many things that Berkeley can do to become even more attractive. These are the things that Berkeley must concentrate on to become even more attractive.

</p>

<p>Yet at the end of the day, Berkeley is faced with an immediate financial problem. None of your proposals - or my proposal to enhance the selectivity of the undergrad program as espoused in this post - do anything to plug Berkeley’s financial gap. Alumni donations are a long-term solution that Berkeley should be leveraging regardless of Berkeley’s financial state. The most direct method to fix Berkeley’s financial problem right now is to bring in hordes of full-fare paying, or heck, maybe 2 or 3x fare paying, international students who are attracted to Berkeley’s eminent global brand name. Like I said, there are millions of newly wealthy Chinese and Indians who would love to send their children to a name-brand US school but who aren’t good enough to be admitted to places such as Harvard or Stanford. </p>

<p>To reiterate, nobody is proposing to lower Berkeley’s overall selectivity. Like I said, right now, Berkeley admits some students of rather questionable (relative) talent. I am not asking for Berkeley to apply lower admissions standards for international students than to their contemporaneous counterparts. {For those that would argue that it would be unfair to apply the same ‘lowered’ admissions standards for state residents to internationals, my response is that if the state allocates less financial support to Berkeley, then the state’s grip over Berkeley’s admissions standards justifiably loosens.} </p>

<p>Another method is to tout ‘executive education’ to wealthy internationals, in the same manner that Harvard Business School hawks luxury-style and luxury-priced exec-ed programs to ‘students’ throughout the world. Berkeley could provide a ‘Gold-Medal-Package’ summer session to international undergrads, with reserved single housing in the best dorm (probably Foothill or Unit 3), access to special seminars, catered & exclusive networking events, and organized events to the best cultural features that the Bay Area has to offer, as well as hand-in-glove service, in addition to the regular Berkeley Summer Session course selection. Such an event could be open-admission or only of nominal admissions difficulty - recall that the regular Berkeley Summer Session is already open admission - and would not confer degrees, but would provide college credit. More importantly, it would provide an opulent educational experience for rich internationals who could claim that they ‘studied’ at Berkeley while enjoying a pleasant summer in the Bay Area. By comparison, plenty of rich Americans would surely pay a luxury sum to be able to say that they ‘studied’ at Oxford or Cambridge for a summer.</p>

[RML]

<p>Okay; sakky. I got your point now. Thanks for reiterating it.</p>

<p>

**
Another method is to tout ‘executive education’ to wealthy internationals, in the same manner that Harvard Business School hawks luxury-style and luxury-priced exec-ed programs to ‘students’ throughout the world. Berkeley could provide a ‘Gold-Medal-Package’ summer session to international undergrads, with reserved single housing in the best dorm (probably Foothill or Unit 3), access to special seminars, catered & exclusive networking events, and organized events to the best cultural features that the Bay Area has to offer, as well as hand-in-glove service, in addition to the regular Berkeley Summer Session course selection. Such an event could be open-admission or only of nominal admissions difficulty - recall that the regular Berkeley Summer Session is already open admission - and would not confer degrees, but would provide college credit. More importantly, it would provide an opulent educational experience for rich internationals who could claim that they ‘studied’ at Berkeley while enjoying a pleasant summer in the Bay Area. By comparison, plenty of rich Americans would surely pay a luxury sum to be able to say that they ‘studied’ at Oxford or Cambridge for a summer. **

</p>

<p>EXCELLENT idea!!! I couldn’t agree more. </p>

<p>I have honestly long thought of that one too only that you posted it first than me. :D</p>

[Fuddman]

<p>Sakky, regarding this comment of yours:</p>

<p>“The most direct method to fix Berkeley’s financial problem right now is to bring in hordes of full-fare paying…students…”</p>

<p>It sounds as if you are proposing that admissions officers be told to, first, identify full-fare students and then, second, give weight to them rather than equally academically qualified poorer students.</p>

<p>If I’m reading you right, a question comes to mind. Do you think the UC administrative hierarchy will even explore this approach much less buy into it?</p>

<p>I believe such an approach is a viable solution but my reading of the current rulers tells me that they would rather let UC fall into financial oblivion than publicly adopt this thinking.</p>

[CalParent2008]

<p>

It sounds as if you are proposing that admissions officers be told to, first, identify full-fare students and then, second, give weight to them rather than equally academically qualified poorer students.

This might have already happened last year as there seemed to be a higher number of students in “rich” suburbs getting admitted. Needless to say, all these kids will pay full in-state price.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

It sounds as if you are proposing that admissions officers be told to, first, identify full-fare students and then, second, give weight to them rather than equally academically qualified poorer students.

</p>

<p>That’s only one method to accomplish the task, and is not necessarily the method I would recommend.</p>

<p>The more subtle method is to simply market Berkeley to international students, a pool of students from whom Berkeley provides relatively little financial support. {In this sense, I agree with RML that Berkeley needs better global marketing to prospective foreign undergrads.} Almost all of the newly interested applicants will therefore be those who can indeed afford full fare. Berkeley could also choose to primarily market itself in English to prospective Asian nationals, leveraging two conveniently correlated facts - that prospective students will need to speak English well in order to succeed at Berkeley and that most Asians who have strong English skills will also tend to be rich. </p>

<p>Berkeley adcom will therefore not need to prioritize wealth in the admissions process as the self-selection of applicants invoked by the marketing process will have accomplished that task already.</p>

[Fuddman]

<p>Sakky, with regard to your method of raising money for Berkeley, it looks good on paper, as the old saying goes, but, to me, it rests on a lot of questionable assumptions.
First off, it assumes the Adcom, without guidance from the rulers, will act in an economically rational way, i.e, admit an English speaking, highly qualified, rich Asian over a poor, but highly qualified (or even less qualified) anybody-else with a real hardship background. I just don’t see that as a slam dunk.
Secondly, the selection process, it seems to me, is set up to react to what the rulers perceive as distortions. It would not surprise me if, prior to releasing the names of admits, they screened and reversed the results to make sure that not too many of one group ( rich English speaking Asians, for example) dominates over another. They know when someone yells “unfair,” there is going to be a public brawl and I’m pretty sure they want to avoid that.
Also, my perception is Asians are pretty much an Engineering/hard science group and there is limited number of slots here. I just don’t see Asians applicants as spread evenly across all majors and that is going to limit the dollars your method realizes.
I appreciate the subtlety in your approach, but the system, it seems to me, is set up to resist it.</p>