Over the past year I have spoken with many frustrated California residents who have students applying to the UC System. They are frustrated about how many out of state and out of country students are being admitted over well qualified California students. My questions are as follows: 1) Even though state funding declined after 2008. Was it morally right for the UC Schools to quadrupple the number of non-California students admitted so they could get the additional tuition that these students provided. Or should they have simpley found a way to make it work with what they had. 2) As tax payers do we have a right to expect that the UC System would primarily be there to serve California students. 3) Should non-California residents be limited to 10% or less similar to Texas. 4) If you had an opportunity to vote to withhold all state funds from UC schools that did not limit non-California freshman admittences to under 10% would you vote Yes or No. 5) If you have a student that was not admitted to a UC school that fit that UC School’s student profile did they end up going to school that you felt was lower quality than the UC school they should have been admitted to and do you feel this will hurt their future eanings potential or will effect them negatively in some way.
Same old arguments…
We hear the argument all the time that the state schools are ‘just like high school’ with the same faces, same cultures, same text books teaching the same ideas. Would you want to limit your college experience to 9 out of 10 people ‘just like you?’ No diversity with kids from Florida or Maryland or Canada.
California is a big state, but is already self selecting that more people from Southern Cal go to UCLA and more Northern Cal to Berkeley.
You wouldn’t limited the budget if they don’t restrict the OOS to 10% of the places, you’d be raising tuition for all California students. They can have a spot to the school, but it is going to cost $25k more per year because that’s how much the OOS students were paying as a premium. The costs don’t just disappear when you take Bob from Burbank rather than Bob from Boston. Davis still needs that $25k whether it comes from a kid from LA or from Orlando.
I think that the determinations that the UC System is making when it comes to involving OOS students needs to focus more on statistics than money. The UC system admits to accepting OOS candidates with lower GPAs and test scores and that is obviously unfair to In-State students, but there shouldn’t be a cap
No. For proof, look at the University of Vermont, which is a public land-grant state university, just like the UCs. They had 71% OOS enrollment for Fall 2017.
Are the taxpayers of Vermont outraged by this? No, they like it that way. The high OOS enrollment subsidizes in-state tuition, yet it doesn’t restrict in-state access, because Vermont is a small state with relatively low demand for higher education. Not saying that this is the right model for California, but it does work in some places.
Just to clarify, the University of Texas does not have a systemwide 10% cap. The 10% cap only applies to one campus, UT-Austin. And the UT Chancellor would like to raise the cap at Austin to 15%.
Look, let’s try a little experiment. Let’s see what would happen if we actually did limit out-of-state freshman enrollment to 10% at a high-demand, high-OOS UC campus, say UCLA. All data are from the UC Info Center.
For Fall 2017, UCLA enrolled 6,038 freshmen. Of those, 4,360 were CA residents, or 72%. (Note that the overall percentage of CA residents at UCLA is actually higher than that, because many students also enter UCLA as transfers, and they are more likely to be CA residents). The rest of the freshmen, 1,678 or 28%, were non-residents (from other US states or internationals).
OK, now let’s say that this is too many OOS freshman, and we want to limit the percentage to 10%. So let’s cut the number of OOS freshmen from 1,678 (or 28%) to only 604 (or 10%), That’s a net drop of 1,074 OOS freshmen.
OK, so now we can admit 1,074 more CA residents, right? No, the news is actually better than that. For Fall 2017, UCLA had a 47% CA resident yield – in other words, only 47% of the Californian students that were admitted to UCLA actually enrolled (the rest picked other schools over UCLA – like Berkeley, USC, UCI, etc). So we can actually admit 2,288 more CA residents (assuming that only 47% of them will enroll).
Under the old system, the number of CA residents accepted to UCLA was 9,289 (again, only 47% of them actually enrolled). Under the new system, we can boost CA resident admits by 2,288, all the way up to 11,577. Everyone is happy now, right?
Hold on. UCLA had 63,516 applications from CA residents for Fall 2017 (not including OOS applicants).
Old acceptance rate for CA residents: 9,289 out of 63,516, or 14.6%.
New acceptance rate for CA residents: 11,577 out of 63,516, or 18.2%
So by limiting OOS freshman to 10%, we boosted the CA resident acceptance rate by … 3.6 percentage points. Is this a game-changer?
Old number of CA residents rejected by UCLA: 54,227
New number of CA residents rejected by UCLA: 51,939
Somehow I don’t think everyone is happy yet.
UCLA provides a detailed breakdown of the stats for resident, domestic OOS, and international admits. Overall, the non-resident admits have higher stats – not lower – than the CA residents.
25-75% ACT range for admits, Fall 2017:
28-34 CA Residents
32-34 Domestic OOS
32-34 International
UC Weighted GPA for admits, Fall 2017:
4.33-4.60 CA Residents
4.40-4.80 Domestic OOS
4.00-4.41 International
The internationals do have a lower weighted GPA, but I think that’s just because other countries have different systems for honors courses that make weighting trickier. The unweighted GPAs are similar.
http://www.admission.ucla.edu/Prospect/Adm_fr/Frosh_Prof17.htm
The UCs do not count OOS Honors classes either, so chances are that OOS GPA is understated compared to IS.
Update: For Fall 2018, UCLA got 71,386 applications from CA residents.
For comparison, UCLA has room for about 6,000 freshman total.
Even if you locked out OOS applicants completely, and reserved every available freshman slot for CA residents, UCLA admissions would still be terrible.
And don’t say “then UCLA needs to expand”. They are already large and already overcrowded, and they are surrounded by some of the most expensive real estate in the country. I doubt that there will be any major future expansions there, or at the Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Irvine, or San Diego campuses either.
There is a case for UC system expansion, but most future expansion will probably happen at the inland campuses: Davis, Riverside, and Merced.
Maybe there will be new UC campuses in the future (although none are currently planned), but if there are, they will most likely be in areas where UC can get at least 1,000-2,000 acres of developable land at low cost, or donated for free. That rules out pretty much everywhere near the California coast. Think UC Redding or UC Visalia instead. However, it’s unlikely that such options will relieve the pressure at campuses like UCLA or Berkeley, any more than UC Merced did.
Food for thought. My daughter was accepted to Riverside, Merced and Santa Cruz. Those schools were a lot lower ranked than out of state schools that she got into and not good fits for her. She got wait listed at Davis. She would have probably been admitted to her first choice if, Davis, if there were a lot less non-residents that got in. Why can’t we let the non-resident go to Riverside and Merced or the community colleges. The reason UCLA gets so many application is because it is a good school but also because it is in Southern California not to far from the beach. If we allowed out of state and out of country to get in under the TAG and community college honors program would they still come? I read a statistic that about 50% of the freshman class at UCLA in 2017 was non-resident. That means about 3,000 more kids could have been admitted from California. Plus I’ve got to believe some kids are admitted to just as good schools in their home states and other states but choosing to come to schools like UCLA because of the weather. You don’t see a lot of non-residents at Merced or Riverside. Even with the large amount of applications I would feel better if my tax dollars were going to educate California kids. Do you think it would be feasible to limit out of state at the more sought after UC schools and let the out of state go to Merced and Riverside and let them apply to the TAG program?
There are plenty of Californians at CU-Boulder, Arizona, Washington and Oregon too. Should those schools shut out Californians and tell them to ‘Stay Home’ or go to U of Northern Colorado, Northern Arizona, or the inland schools in Washington to save the good schools for state residents?
All World-Class universities (UCB, UCLA, UVA, UM, UF, etc) have a significant percent of out-of-state and international students. This is by design and one of the reasons they are world-class. World-class universities need perspectives from more than just in-state students.
Test data shows that OOS and International students have higher SAT and ACT scores. GPA is not totally relevant because it is not apples-to-apples across states, private/public high schools etc with all different GPA systems and rigor of coursework and schools. For example, a B student at Stuyvesant in NYC, Thomas Jefferson in VA, Princeton, Millburn, etc in NJ, Westport or Greenwich in CT, Philips Exeter or Andover in MA, top schools in Hong Kong, ETC…are all probably stronger students than A students from less rigorous high schools in CA.
I think CA residents should consider themselves lucky to have a wide range of choices, with excellent in-state UC, CSU, and CC options, the WUC exchange with other excellent universities, and schools all over the US that welcome CA students. Count your blessings and choices.
They would probably have to cut back on the kids that are getting aid directly from the school and yes I would be OK with tuition being raised if it meant that more California kids get admitted. They would also have to make some cuts and increase class size. I would accept all that. I would also be the first to vote for more funding. Lastly, don’t you think $60,000 seems like some fiscal mismanagement is going on. How is Texas able to limit non-residents to 10% and make it work. Yes out if state pays $50,000 per year and there is no merit based scholarships for non residents. California is one of the most deverse states in the country and I did not say no out of state. Just limit it to 10%. Also, I think we would get plenty non-residents at $70,000 or $75,000. There are some pretty rich people out there. As an alternative we could just let the UC schools become private schools and use our tax dollars towards the state schools or schools that support California residents. I would be OK with that. We could charge rent for the use of California soil and use that money for poor California families.
The problem is – everyone in CA seems to think their kid is UC material. Not all of them are. That is why there are three levels of college/universities in CA:
- UC (and there are Hi/Med/Low within)
- CSU (probably also ^^)
- CC
The top UC schools are elite academic institutions. They WANT a diverse student population. (Note “diverse” not “deverse” and “there are no merit-based scholarships” not “there is no merit based scholarships”, etc).
True it works in Vermont. But what is happening in California is that California kids who qualify for UCLA or Berkely are being admitted to San Diego, Irvine, Santa Barbara and Davis. Those that qualify there are getting accepted to Santa Cruz. Those that should be getting accepted to Santa Cruz are being accepted to Merced and Riverside. Merced and Riverside have very low amounts of non-residents. Part of the issue here is that some out of state students probably have other schools that are just as good that they were accepted to but want to come here because of the weather. Could we limit the non-residents at UCLA, Berkely, Davis, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Irvine and Santa Cruz but let non-residents go to Merced and Riverside. Also we could let them apply to the TAG program and community college honors program. They would still have a degree from a good UC school.
Sorry, I meant UT Austin, which by the way is at the same level as a number if UC schools and my daughter was accepted to.
- Who says they “qualify” for UCLA or Berkeley? (note spelling of Berkeley).
- What is wrong with San Diego, Irvine, Santa Barbara, Davis, and Santa Cruz?
- I doubt it’s just about the weather, but who cares if it is? Again, lucky you gets to live in that weather all the time…maybe some students want to experience a different area of the US for college. Good for them - always good to broaden horizons.
- No, you can’t limit which campuses admit OOS residents.
- You need to get over this. The fact is, the universities get to choose which students to admit based on their criteria, one of which is geographic diversity. Again, this brings different perspectives to a world-class university.
- Merced and Riverside aren’t world class; hence the fewer OOS applicants.
- Your daughter could have applied to other universities if there was risk she wouldn’t get into a top UC. She also has the option to take a gap year, and/or attend CC and re-apply.
Do you think the private schools pay real estate taxes? Do you think it would help to make Cal and UCLA private schools, taking away 100,000 places, 50,000 instate spots?
Yeah, that will show government how to do it.
You are correct. But I could accept this because I would feel that my tax dollars were supporting California residents. We don’t typically use tax payer dollars to fund roads in other states do we. Also, I know I am being self serving but my daughter had a 4.3 GPA, 10 AP, 6 honors, tons of community involvement. Got wait listed to the UC school that was here first choice and never got in. If they had not admitted so many non-California residents students them my daughter would have probably got in. My daughter grades and ACT were above what they showed as the range of who got accepted. So my daughter is a living example of someone that was for lack of a better term screwed over. Also, I feel as a tax payer I have been stolen from.