But those students would still need housing at UCB, CU, and Oregon. The neighbors would still be angry and want them not to drive up rents and COL. How much you charge them for tuition doesn’t change the point of this thread, which is there is no room at the inn and Cal may have to reduce its size by 5100 students. If all those 5100 students are OOS or international, then Cal will probably have a budget problem.
1 Like
Pure speculation, but I would assume the CA Supreme Court would have to rule on the stay request, like, this week or next. Certainly this is a front burner issue for all parties, the state of CA included.
1 Like
But your tax dollars are not actually funding the school!! The state only covers 13% of the operating budget of UC Berkeley! The state funding has been declining for years. This is really a “semi-private” school. Berkeley has to obtain the rest of their funding through research funding, tuition, and philanthropy (they are in the tail end of a 6 Billion Dollar fundraising campaign with 5 Billion raised so far). So the citizens don’t really have a “right” to the school if they aren’t paying for it. Berkeley will lose it’s spot as the number one university in the world if they limit their recruitment of talent to one small part of the world, i.e. California only. We want to keep it as a competitive school. Not everyone can go to Berkeley. There are other UC’s and State Schools.
State Funding Declines:
https://calparents.berkeley.edu/the-funding-conundrum-cals-dwindling-state-support/#:~:text=Today%2C%20the%20state%20funds%20just,funding%20was%20at%2050%20percent.
Fundraising Campaign:
https://light.berkeley.edu/
5 Likes
Well, that 13% is infinitely greater than the 0% tax contribution from OOS. Cal is a public university and since its founding the state and citizens of CA have invested in its growth and development. It’s not unreasonable for in-state folks to have the expectation that when all things are equal, schools choose in-state applicants over OOS and international applicants. And its also reasonable to expect that when enrollment is arbitrarily slashed, in-state applicants are prioritized first.
13 Likes
Or maybe just a 13% advantage ? 
3 Likes
That’s the same for ALL public schools. I don’t think there is a state that funds 100% of instate students. Some are better than others, but all schools supplement with tuition $$, research grants, federal money, fundraising, etc.
8 Likes
While I agree with your general point that UCB has a right and an interest to recruit students from outside of CA, which advances diversity and multiple perspectives that benefit CA and non-CA students alike, it is the case that CA taxpayers are paying for this institution. This is CA land given to Berkeley for free in perpetuity and the legislature recently gave many billions in additional funding specifically to limit non-residents and expand additional space for future CA students. UCB belongs to CA taxpayers.
10 Likes
I am not even looking for 13% advantage - but don’t accept out of state applicants when in-state applicants with equal or better stat/ECs are rejected. Is that too much to ask for?
If they don’t do this, why should my tax money pay for 13% budget? We don’t do that for private institutions which are in California.
11 Likes
What about the many people who pay California taxes who are not residents so their children (if they have any) get no 13% advantage, no state funding, no FA? My sister had to pay income taxes in California when she did a deal or worked in CA. Pro football players pay taxes on their weekly earnings if they play in SF or LA, but their kids get no advantage.
If Californians want to fully fund the colleges and save all the spots for themselves, not rely on OOS tuition and internationals, they can do that but the citizens will need to pay more or tuition will have to be raised. Their sports teams will have to have rosters from California high schools only.
2 Likes
You left out the sales tax paid by tourists who walk around Union Square and buy expensive tchotchkes. What about their kids?
2 Likes
Actually, a better way to look at in-state admissions and subsidy is to consider: how much subsidy is needed to enroll a desired number in-state students with a desired level of in-state tuition discount and in-state financial aid that is not available to out-of-state students?
If the state / taxpayers and the university can agree that $X from the state can subsidize $Y in-state tuition and good in-state financial aid for N in-state students (perhaps with specific minimums at each campus), it should not matter in the overall sense what the university does in terms of using any remaining capacity in terms of admitting out-of-state students.
For some reason, no party in the argument seems to want to frame it in this manner.
1 Like
The other problem with OOS slots is when qualified in-state applicants get shut out, not everyone in this group can alternatively attend the OOS publics or Ivies. Sure, folks with money will happily take that admit at JHU or Vanderbilt or wherever. But, low-income high-stat residents will basically have to settle for a lower-tier school.
1 Like
This is not a valid argument. The non resident would have instate tuition from whatever state they were a residence of.
3 Likes
I’m just saying that you should not limit admissions to in-state students 100%. As it stands, it is much harder to be accepted to Berkeley as an out of state student. I do not think there are out of state students of inferior caliber that are taking the spots of superior performing in-state kids. Non-resident enrollment is around 20% with 80% in-state. It would be closer to 50/50 if they were not giving an advantage to in-state kids. Giving an advantage to in-state kids makes sense since it is a public school (even though only funded by state at 13% of budget), but those 20% out of state kids are valued not just for the out of state tuition but to diversify the campus and bring in the best and brightest from around the world to keep Berkeley as the number one university in the world. If we limit to only CA schools, it will lose that flagship status. We have other UC’s… That’s all I’m saying.
4 Likes
But that comes back to “how much should the state spend to subsidize how much lower net cost attendance for how many in-state students at the university?”
But I would not be surprised that no one likes to see it in these terms, because then everything would be distilled into a relatively transparent transaction. It seems that all parties want to treat each of the interconnected moving parts (in-state admission / enrollment, out-of-state admission / enrollment, in-state tuition and financial aid, out-of-state tuition, state subsidy to the university, state budget including taxes and other spending) as an independent thing that they can lobby for more or less of, even though changing one by itself affects the others within the constraints of the state and university budgets.
1 Like
Oh I agree that we need OOS and international students. If you look at the charts posted above, post-2007 every UC including UCB starting disproportionately preferring OOS students over in-state in order to grab all that extra money. With public pressure, that trend has been somewhat limited at UCB in recent years. In the current situation, when enrollments are being slashed due to a court ruling, in-state students should be protected as much as possible.
I really wish we can increase enrollment so both in-state and OOS students can be accommodated.
2 Likes
They might, but they are paying California income tax. The argument is that Californians deserve the spot because they paid the taxes that support the UCs and CSUs. Well, others support those schools through the state budget and because they pay income taxes too. In fact many state residents may not pay income taxes at all and still get to go to state schools with a big discount on tuition.
Colleges set their tuition rates based on what they need to run the school (it’s more complicated than that). That’s what they set the tuition at, but then take into account that the state budget is going to give them more money so they can reduce the tuition for instate. California instate tuition is less than 13% of out of state or international tuition, so Californians are already getting more of a break. They also have a lot of other schools provided by the state funding to choose from. Those schools aren’t UCLA or UCB levels, but still good schools for those low income students who can’t go out of state to attend.
Also, they do have other options through WUE that might even come out cheaper than a UC would be. Idaho, UN Reno, Wyoming, Montana give them a much bigger discount than California gives to residents of those states.
I don’t care if California wants to make its schools for residents only. My kids wanted to go to school in California but I couldn’t afford it. I don’t think it is going to solve the housing problem in Berkeley or keep the cost of tuition down. I don’t think they want to have no international students on campus or even keep out the New Yorkers or Texans (although some would think that a benefit). It will kind of kill the diversity factor that many search for at their schools.
How lovely that there are schools good enough for low-income students to attend.
1 Like
FWIW, housing around CA will get a boost with the recently passed SB9 law:
I’m sure it’ll help Berkeley increase its housing stock at some point, but probably not until the Class of 2026 is looking for off campus housing in a couple or few years.
That is the problem with our political system. The people who feel the impact have no say in it as the number of kids who put in all the hard work and then get rejected by Tier 1 UCs is a much smaller group when compared to all the other special interest groups. So, no politician is ever going to help this group.
1 Like