<p>So now the U of Calfornia system has disclosed that among this season's freshman admits, the number of OOS, i.e. full payers, showed a significant increase; approximately 4%. Just like in other states wherein the legislature and the governor have steeply decreased aid to public colleges, UC officials are turning down residents with high marks in favor of OOS who bring in three times the cash. I'll assume that this is also true for transfer students who bring significant scholarships with them.</p>
<p>Really, are any of us surprised? The money lost has to come from somewhere. I have empathy for students and families like the one quoted in the AP story (by Terence Chea), who now feel that state colleges are getting away from their original mission, educating the state's citizens. But unlike primary and secondary education, there is no right to college presently in any state, that I am aware of. As far as I know, North Carolina is one of the few state governments that prescribes the ratio of state citizens in the state's public colleges, and the legislature provides monies accordingly for that enrollment stipulation. Heck, I think even private Duke University receives a grant from the state to enroll a set number of North Carolina citizens.</p>
<p>We can't just keep cutting and cutting, refuse to pay moderate and reasonable taxes, and expect public services to continue at present or historic levels.</p>
<p>But it’s not like Californians aren’t paying more than moderate and unreasonably high taxes. As California’s high taxation and high level of regulation drives more and more companies (and some higher income earners) out of the state actual revenue from taxes will continue to go down. If they increase taxation more then the revenues will decline even further. The equation isn’t as simple as a higher tax rate and cuts in services.</p>
<p>All the articles I’ve read explain that increasing funding needs are not being met by the state legislature, but nobody explains why the universities need so much more money each year. Of course inflation explains some of the increased costs of education but I doubt it explains the majority of price increases: if anything, seems like increased labor and administration costs make up the majority of new expenditures. Given all these articles about kids who can’t graduate on time because they can’t get the classes they need, I don’t think anyone would seriously suggest that increasing costs are due to increased course offerings.</p>
<p>CA is already taxed at absurdly high levels. I don’t think its residents should shoulder more of the cost of education until the UC administrators can explain why the cost of educating students is rising so quickly. I don’t have any personal knowledge of the UC system, though – perhaps the CCers who are familiar with the situation can shed some light?</p>
<p>Hard to dispute that California taxes are very high. Mostly I’m thinking of Washington State, which has repeatedly cut funding for higher education. And yes, over the years colleges contiually raised the cost of attendance in excess of inflation, yet failed to justify the increases.</p>
<p>College costs are rising much quicker than the overall rate of inflation at pretty much every college in the US. But beyond that general rise the UC and Cal State costs have been forced to rise even faster to make up their operating budget shortfall created by the repeated cuts imposed by the state legislature in its failed attempts to balance the state’s budget.</p>
<p>^The Commitment to Delawareans is a bunch of BS if you ask me. It basically says that they will admit you if you have all As and Bs in the hardest classes at your school…great. Any Delawarean would have gotten in anyway with those stats. Delaware is a pretty easy school to get into. </p>
<p>Lately, people are furious about the number of out of staters. Commitment was really just a PR campaign to shut people up. </p>
<p>Admittedly though, Delaware is a really small state and apparently it has a 90% admit rate for Delawareans so I guess that’s good. I didn’t meet the commitment (didn’t have enough years of a language) and still got in with honors and a scholarship. </p>
<p>Sorry for the tangent. The campaign has just always bitterly annoyed me. Basically, if you are one of the top students in your school, we promise to admit you. Not much of commitment to me…</p>
<p>I know this is anecdotal, but the director of housing at one of the UC’s told me that there is a tremendous amount of inefficiency and wasteful spending. He said if the schools were actually run well, they could save a lot of money.</p>
<p>I think you’re a bit confused. Perhaps things are different in your state, but the general trend is that state legislatures are cutting back on total appropriations to public universities in both absolute dollars and in dollars-per-student. It’s not just a question of the universities asking for more money and the legislatures refusing to provide those increases; it’s actually a shrinking pot of state money going into higher education. </p>
<p>Faced with that reality, public universities have only so many options. They can increase tuition. They can replace those dollars with money from other sources, e.g., private philanthropy, more research grants from outside sources, more effective development and commercialization of intellectual property, etc. They can increase the size of the student body to generate more tuition revenue, at the cost of larger class sizes, higher student-faculty ratios, less individualized attention to students, and more students being closed out of classes they want or need. They can cut back on spending; here there are probably some opportunities for genuine economies, but given that most of their spending goes into faculty salaries and benefits, deep cuts on the spending side will almost inevitably translate either into fewer faculty (and again bigger classes, higher S/F ratios, etc), and/or cuts in faculty pay, making it harder to recruit and retain the best faculty. Or they can try to add more OOS students to the mix, so as to raise the average tuition revenue per student without sticking it to in-state students, but at the cost of reducing opportunities for in-state applicants.</p>
<p>Different schools will try different mixes of these strategies. Most will employ more than one of these approaches. All have their downsides, and some (like finding substitute sources of revenue) will prove to be easier said than done. But the legislators who want to slash higher education spending while holding the line on tuition and capping OOS enrollment are setting up their public universities–and the students who depend on them—for a hard fall, because at the end of the day the numbers need to add up. You can’t just cut and cut and expect to maintain a quality product. Skimping on higher education comes at the cost of reduced educational opportunities for the state’s young people, and less intellectual capital upon which to build the state’s economy.</p>
<p>One area they could look at is reforming the pension retirement system for UC employees. Unfunded pension liabilities are growing exponentially and causing severe distress to the budgets of many towns, cities and counties. I would imagine it is a big expenditure for the UC system as well. As of now, they have a $12 billion unfunded liability. They have increased the employee’s contribution, but they may also have to go to a 401K for new employees. The union will resist, but at this point it is not affordable anymore.</p>
<p>It sure is interesting how its the always the union’s fault that a state has no money. Let’s not forget the legislators who disregard the law and choose to not make the payments they were supposed to make.</p>
<p>I don’t see how pension reform is really any different from other types of pay cuts. In the end, employees are getting less, and that makes it harder for the schools to recruit talent.</p>
<p>I am not sure what poster #13 is referring to when he/she says that legislators are disregarding the law and choosing not to make payments they were supposed to make. Can you elaborate. </p>
<p>Poster # 14, I am not so sure that it will be so difficult to recruit talent if their pensions are reformed. There are many excellent professors who would like to work at one of the UC’s. The job market is not all that good as you are probably aware.</p>
<p>I think many parents can not understand the increase in costs, especially given the use of non tenure track teaching professionals (again, not these people are not good at what they do, but many are poorly paid). There doesnt seem to be focus on cutting admin costs or fees. </p>
<p>The recent debacle on Rutgers student fees (mandatory fees) being spent to get Snooki to speak shows to me that the admin need to get control on costs. That the students decide where to spend these fees is no excuse. The admin can not justify having mandatory fees if this is where they go. </p>
<p>To me the disconnect is the state legislatures cut funding, yet the colleges make no visible attempt to rationalize spending, only add more OOS or cut grants/aids. They dont look at their own house. Salaries of college presidents are outrageous, especially when benefits, not just pension, but houses, are added in. Its time to cut these things out.</p>
<p>A lot of those state employee pension funds are written into law where the legislature is required to include that in the budget. Many states have chosen to ignore that and take that money for use in the general fund. This is why it is now “unfunded liability” because the legislators have chosen to rob Peter to pay Paul instead of cutting money from Paul and funding Peter like they’re supposed to. Instead, they want to blame Peter.</p>
<p>As far as I know, North Carolina is one of the few state governments that prescribes the ratio of state citizens in the state’s public colleges,</p>
<p>Yes, but UNC-CH probably accepts more OOS than the UCs do. </p>
<p>Is that 4% number you quote represent a 4% increase or that the UCs accepted 4% of OOS kids? </p>
<p>UNC-CH is accepting 18% of OOS students which is more than UCLA is. So, if Calif prescribed a ratio similar to North Carolina, then MORE out of state students would be accepted.</p>
<p>I thought school taxes are low in CA. I don’t know if you are paying a lot in those taxes that go for education or not. I do know that CA unis are among the most expensive in the country for OOS kids and rival private school costs. I also know that CA doesn’t accept very many OOS kids. The ones they do accept seem to what they feel will enhance the reputation of the school and the school community. </p>
<p>NY is modeled after the CA uni system but has not been so successful in bringing up the quality and reputations of its flagship schools. We have kept the costs reasonable. I’d like to see more OOS kids accepted here and for more money to go to the state schools to make them stronger with local school availability also widened at the same time. I’d like to see the money come from what private schools are getting. </p>
<p>CA has a great system, and I have no sympathy of it letting in more OOS kids at the prices they charge and if the kids are so great, any scholarships they give. The problem is with the some of their overburdened community colleges, is what I see. The UC guarantee from CCs are not being supported in terms of class availability and other things which is a problem, at many off the local schools. I also think that some of the newer less known UCs should be moved down to Cal State levels,</p>
![http://now.humboldt.edu/images/magazine_uploads/csu-funding-graph.gif]CSU](http://now.humboldt.edu/images/magazine_uploads/csu-funding-graph.gif%5DCSU){kind=link}
![http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/budget/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/budget_graph_03.jpg]UC](http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/budget/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/budget_graph_03.jpg%5DUC){kind=link}
