<p>$24-25K would be fast approaching privatization of UC because costs of education a UC student shouldn’t be that much more, say, $30K.</p>
<p>We know costs to educate would be at worst = non-resident tuition, which is currently, $32-33K.</p>
<p>< 20% state support would essentially be privatization.</p>
<p>tsdad:</p>
<p>Budgets and state contribution towards educating a UW student are two different stories. </p>
<p>UC budget is >>>>> than state support, but at the present: tuition is $11-12K, and say cost is $30K, which = 60% state supplemented support.</p>
<p>< 20% state support is essentially privatization.</p>
<p>UCBChemEGrad,</p>
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<p>The time on this site is a few hours off. ;)</p>
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<p>True, but Berkeley’s facilities, I would bet, are far more expensive and in greater number. It would cost a lot more, and take more time to rebuild, if they were damaged. FEMA is supposed to pay for 75% of the damages, but I have a feeling it’d be difficult for the government to pay for anything when they can’t even pass a budget.</p>
<p>At any rate, we at 'furd are watching Berkeley’s demise with keen interest. After all, Berkeley’s faculty is a feast for Stanford. Indeed, Stanford’s already tucking in.</p>
<p>nom nom nom :)</p>
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If Berkeley (or any of the other UCs) privatized, a lot would be up in the air. It is clear the federal government favors public universities when handing out grants and losing the favor of the federal government could easily result in the fast deterioration of the university.</p>
<p>I do believe that both the federal and state governments should put more backing toward the CalState system, however, and a UC privatization would clear an obstacle to affordable, “quality” education in California.</p>
<p>Sentiment, I never said anything about privatization. But, if that’s the will of the California public electorate and their elective reps, it’s really sad.</p>
<p>Phantasmajoric, Tea Party candidates would never give money to liberal Berkeley to rebuild. Oh, and furd already has a strong faculty. No need for it to poach Berkeley talent. Seriously, if an HYPSM school takes a Berkeley Prof its like private equity raping public companies for their resources…all in the name of private greed. DISGUSTING!</p>
<p>/rant</p>
<p>Sentiment, LBNL, LLNL, and LANL aren’t going away and will still have close ties to Berkeley if tuition doubles.</p>
<p>OP, I wouldn’t worry about Reed not offering programs in cognitive science etc etc. If you end up interested in these types of fields, you’ll be looking at grad school, and a Reed education will prepare you well for that. </p>
<p>That said, as another poster mentioned, Reed is a very very different experience than UC. It is intensely intellectual, and does not have the types of big school experience that you’ll have at one of the UCs. If you are strongly attracted to the Reed environment (and I’m assuming you’ve visited), then that’s where you should go. The UCs will not offer a comparable experience, though you can certainly get a wonderful education at UCs. </p>
<p>Yes, the astronomy and space science programs at UCSC are very strong, but that also is true at Cal (and to a slightly lesser degree at UCLA). In terms of academic strength and reputation, the overall programs at Cal and UCLA are similar enough that you can make a choice between them depending on which campus environment you prefer. </p>
<p>Best of luck with your decision!</p>
<p>@ UCB
Yes, but I’m a skeptical of whether tuition at amounts such as $25k could avoid UC privatization. As a consumer, it certainly isn’t appealing to pay that amount for a public education. I’d rather pay $10k more for a privatized experience and I believe the universities would give in to this demand.</p>
<p>Either way, a lot less people are still likely to apply to the UCs if tuition doubles (w/o privatization) so I would question if this would raise Berkeley’s USNWR rank. The midtier UCs will suffer for certain.</p>
<p>^ I see your point. However, one fallacy to assume is that if UC were to double its tuition that services and class sizes would still resemble a “large public” university.</p>
<p>Berkeley’s website had a professor commentary on the budget crisis. The crisis seems to be pushing Berkeley into a decision on whether to remain “truly public” or “truly great”. The author thought remaining “truly great” was more important and thereby give up some of Berkeley’s public character to maintain its greatness. Fortunately, Berkeley has the resources and position to make such a decision about its destiny that the other UCs aren’t in a position to make. </p>
<p>Of course Berkeley administrators want Berkeley to maintain both its public character and its greatness. I hope we/they are successful.</p>
<p>I doubt that the feds care about privatization. They care about whether the applications meet the intent of Congress. Most of then grants go to public institutions because that’s where the best researchers are with exceptions of course. Johns Hopkins is a good example of an exception.</p>
<p>"UC administrators said the university faces a budget deficit that is estimated to swell to $2.4 billion in five years because of rising costs associated with student enrollment, employee pensions, faculty pay and building maintenance. The shortfall could be even larger if the system loses even more state funding.</p>
<p>Possible strategies to address the budget deficit include increasing the student-faculty ratio, relying more on non-tenure track faculty, reducing California resident enrollment, boosting nonresident enrollment, raising tuition and cutting financial aid."</p>
<p>Source: [UC</a> prepares plans for big loss in state funding - BusinessWeek](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>^ The news about UC funding is not good. However, I think it gets more public bad press because it is a large, prestigious public university system. </p>
<p>I’m sure private universities are facing just as high of costs with academia faculty pay and pensions…and they don’t have a public funding source as a back-up.</p>
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<p>Perhaps true, but it is not Berkeley’s decision to make. The Legislature and Regents, who hold the only votes that matter, have already made clear that they would rather upgrade the prestige of other campuses, and if that means devaluing Cal a few notches, so be it. Quite frankly, I do not believe that they even care if Cal & UCLA decline in stature – it just makes their (political) job easier.</p>
<p>^The University of California Berkeley Foundation does control ~$900 million of its endowment. This is the figure used by some endowment ranking authorities which disregard the ~$1.7 billion of endowment managed by the Regents.</p>
<p>Blue, UC Regents have granted the campuses some more autonomy over their budgets. It’s a start.</p>
<p>You probably wont see real action, unfortunately, until UCs fall from rankings and cost of attendance shuts out a big number of students.</p>
<p>Sometimes action only happens when negative consequences are realized…take Cal baseball as an example.</p>
<p>Mentioned the ridiculousness of the Blue and Gold Scholarship which gives 100% tuition break to a college student whose parents make $70K or <. The UC instituted this right when the budget crunch hit even worse.</p>
<p>The potential for abuse of this scholarship is great, being there is still an affirmative action wrt economic background if not race. Is it true merit, or does the U use this as a way of ‘increasing diversity,’ where the recipients may have even lesser qualifications than the rest of the student body?</p>
<p>In other words, it’s possible to admit the whole UC class under B&G because there are plenty of underperforming schools whose students are poor. If it is true merit, maybe the %'s of B&G recipients is small, not really material wrt the student body as a whole.</p>
<p>UC pensions have been a problem building up for decades, and UC has only addressed teh problem fairly recently when funding problems started to occur. Shows how poorly run the system is. And UC has only recently started to address reducing costs that it could have instituted years ago, but has started too late.</p>
<p>And wrt other Us, tuition rises at private schools all the time, with greater $$ increases than UC. It’s just because the %'s are smaller because of the larger tuition base that they escape notice.</p>
<p>Autonomy over nickels and dimes is not program autonomy. Raising the price at Boalt is not the same as the ability to raise the price for undergrad. Cal could not expand its MA programs – a cash cow for Columbia U. – without incurring the wrath of the CSU’s and thus the Legislature. (Think about it: why not leverage Cal’s strengths – its grad programs – like Columbia does?) Cal cannot raise its undergrad admissions requirements. </p>
<p>One unintended consequence of recruiting more OOS’ers (and internationals) is that Cal then loses home field advantage. If more and more students hail from OOS, the local taxpayers become more estranged from the flagship. Cal alums whose kids get displaced to Davis/Irvine to enable OOS’ers to attend are less happy and become less supportive. It slowly becomes a downward spiral, IMO.</p>
<p>I don’t foresee any action when Cal does fall in the rankings. The state leaders are egalitarian as is Birgenau…he can’t in good conscience ask for more money such that other campuses get less.</p>
<p>Birgeneau is the Chancellor of Berkeley…he better be looking out for Berkeley’s interests! Not UC as a whole! That’s Yudof’s responsibility. </p>
<p>Cal’s administration is full of outsiders. They don’t seem to understand California higher public education history. Chancellor Tien was the last great Berkeley chancellor.</p>
<p>I suggested to Berkeley’s committee on the budget that they look at specialized undergrad programs and charge a premium…a Berkeley/UCSF pre-med/med program, an engineering/Haas technology/business degree, etc. Make these programs first rate and put some special student services with it and watch the kids clamor to get in.</p>
<p>Bluebayou:</p>
<p>Paragraph one, I think the UC has already worked that angle. There’s a premium of grad professional program fees that have already been instituted.</p>
<p>Agree with PII. The alumni base of all UC’s is pretty much untapped because the giving rate of all UC’s is still extremely small. UCLA which receives > $300M/year, still has an extremely small giving-rate %. This is really untapped for all the UCs and may even shrink if non-residents displaced by geography, go home. Those at home will similary become more detached.</p>
<p>PIII: The UC leaders couldn’t care less, agree, because, imo, they only care about diversity. They are truly egalitarian and don’t care to ascend the system nor their individual schools. Falling in the rankings is nothing to them.</p>
<p>Both UCLA and Cal reject persons both should never consider rejecting. Both admit some who have no business being accepted. This idea of the essays (w/ legitmate hardship) bearing so much weight, is beyond me. If someone has to work 5 jobs to bring home money for the family, then will he/she have to work 5 jobs while attending UC?</p>
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The CSUs would gladly be willing to trade abolishing the limitations of the UCs inability to award MAs for abolishing their inability to award PhDs. -.-</p>