UC regents expected to put limit on percentage of non- Californians

This new article is on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle this morning. The article goes on to say that 6 UC campuses will cap enrollment of nonresident undergraduates at 20 percent. The whole purpose of the limitation, is to put California residents first. The argument is that non-residents are harming residents by crowding them out. What do you think ?

In theory I think it’s a great thing. When you look at other states that cap out of state admissions you do see that their flagships are more available to their in state students. Texas has that top 7% guaranteed at UT Austin, here in CA my daughter goes to a very competitive high school of 800+ senior class. Only the top 1% probably have a chance at UCLA, top 2-3% could possibly have a shot at Cal. That is a lot of excellent in state applicants turned away, often for out of state and international applicants with lower stats. The problem trickles down to the mid tier UC’s making them more impacted for everyone. The flip side is the UC’s have been using out of state tuition to bolster their budgets. If that’s capped at 20%, where will the money needed come from? Tuition increases, they’re already pretty costly for publics, tax increases?

To my knowledge, the only other state university that currently has a hard “cap” on out-of-state enrollment is the University of North Carolina (20%). I don’t think UT has a formal cap; they just don’t have much room after guaranteeing admission to the top 7% of in-state students.

A few relevant points here:

  • The 20% cap applies to the whole UC system. At present, the system as a whole only has 16.5% out-of-staters. So the number of out-of-staters systemwide could actually **grow** under this proposal.
  • However, any future growth in out-of-state enrollment would not occur at UCB (24.4%), UCLA (22.8%), or UCSD (22.9%). Those three campuses would be allowed to keep their current out-of-state enrollments, but not go any higher.
  • The other six campuses would still be allowed to add more out-of-staters, as long as they don't exceed the 20% level, and as long the system as a whole does not exceed the 20% level.

If the policy is adopted, then any future growth in out-of-state enrollment would probably be concentrated at UCD (14.7%) and UCSB (12.2%). Those two are the highest ranked campuses with significant room to add more out-of-state students under the proposed cap.

The effects would probably be more limited at the remaining four campuses. UCI (18.9%) is well ranked, but they are already close to the proposed cap, so they don’t have much room to add more. UCSC (7.6%), UCR (3.1%), and UCM (0.4%) have ample room, but they aren’t as highly ranked and are unlikely to attract as much out-of-state interest as UCD or UCSB.

This will lower the quality of students in their top 2 schools UCLA and Berkeley and will most likely impact the rankings…This has happened at University of Texas Austin, which used to be in the top 50.

@Corbett I’m looking at the UCLA freshman profile and getting 26% of enrolling students as out of state and international, the acceptance rate is quite a lot higher as their yield is lower, but of those enrolling in 2016, 26% are not Californians, and that was a drop from previous years. 40% of acceptance letters that went out were to out of area applicants.

@gmfreedom , Do you really think that will happen( lower the quality)? I feel it won’t, and that more Californians will apply to instate UC’s since they will have a better chance of getting in.

I don’t think there will be big effects on UCLA and Berkeley, because the proposed rule would allow them to maintain the current levels of out-of-state enrollment (even though those levels are above 20%). If they were required to reach the 20% level, then that would mean significant cuts in out-of-state enrollment, in which case yes, their stats and rankings would probably suffer. But that’s not being proposed.

I think stats and rankings could go up at UCD and UCSB, if those campuses start getting more interest from out-of-state applicants, which seems likely. Another campus that could potentially benefit is Cal Poly. If you are considering UCD or UCSB, then Cal Poly is comparable in terms of selectivity, has lower out-of-state tuition, has only 16.7% out-of-state enrollment, and is exempt from the proposed cap anyway because it’s not a UC.

Cal Poly would need to make the national university rankings to get considerably more interest from out of state and international applicants, and I don’t get the impression they care to do so. Even among in state applicants with immigrant parents, Cal Poly doesn’t carry the clout they are looking for. My daughter has many friends with Korean, Chinese, and Indian immigrant parents, and none even applied to Cal Poly. I hope it remains a California hidden gem, grateful for my daughter’s acceptance there.

US News follows Carnegie Classification when assigning schools to the “national” or “regional” university categories. The Carnegie Classification uses the number of doctoral degrees issued as a key criterion.

Traditionally, the state only allowed the UC system to grant doctoral degrees, and this meant that all CSUs were relegated to the “regional” category by default. There are now some limited exceptions to this rule, which is why a few of the larger CSUs (e.g. San Diego State, Fresno State) are now “national universities” for US News purposes. But most CSUs (Cal Poly included) still don’t grant doctorates, and therefore will not make the “national university” category.

You’re right, but remember that UCLA’s total enrollment also includes large numbers of students who transfer in, not just those who were admitted as freshman. The transfer students, who mostly come from California community colleges or CSUs, are much less likely to be out-of-staters. So this brings down the percentage of out-of-state students in the total undergraduate population.

My numbers on out-of-state enrollment came from this SF Chronicle story, which in turn says it is sourced from UC stats:

http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/UC-regents-expect-to-limit-enrollment-of-10981514.php

UCLA has a detailed page for their full demographics. According to this page, they had 30,873 total undergrads in Fall 2016, including 24,168 Californians, 3,200 from other US states, and 3,505 international. That makes 21.7% out-of-staters, which seems reasonably close to the 22.8% value in the Chron story.

http://www.aim.ucla.edu/tables/enrollment_demographics_fall.aspx

I guess it depends on the way the cap is worded, I see what you’re saying about community college transfers.

@svcamom

Average SAT for a student accepted to Berkeley from in-state in 2016 was 2045, ACT 31
Average SAT for a student accepted to Berkeley form OUT-of-state in 2016 was 2245, ACT 33

This data PROVES that Getting rid of Out-of-state students will lower the quality of students at Berkeley.

But no one is proposing to get rid of out-of-state students.

The proposal is to cap Berkeley’s out-of-state enrollment at the current levels.

Capping to 20% means lowering the percentage of students from out-of-state at Berkley from current levels…This is simple math…it will lower the average SAT statistics, etc for the next incoming class.

Plus as I mentioned before…University of Texas Austin done just that and they dropped out of the top 50 universities in US.

Another school that would stand to benefit from the proposed policy is USC.

Berkeley and UCLA have to keep a lid on the number of out-of-state students. USC, in contrast, is putting out the welcome mat. Their most recent class was 58% out-of-state, and I suspect that number is only going to rise. Well qualified out-of-state and international students who get turned down at Berkeley and UCLA are getting the green light at USC.

For Californians, USC’s tuition may seem excessive compared to the in-state rates at UCs. But for out-of-staters, USC tuition plus financial aid is probably competitive with out-of-state tuition at UCs.

No, it doesn’t. Capping to 20% means “20% throughout the entire UC system”. The proposal would allow three campuses, including Berkeley, to maintain their current levels of out-of-state enrollment, even though they are above 20%. This is simple reading comprehension:

http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/UC-regents-expect-to-limit-enrollment-of-10981514.php

@corbett UCLA and Berkeley are the only public colleges with meaningful out-of-state population in CA. Why even bother proposing 20% cap if it doesn’t change anything?!

@gmfreedom UCLA and Berkeley turn down in-state kids with 2300+ SATs (old SAT), so I don’t think they will have to lower their average SAT by accepting more in-state kids.

If you had read the cited news story, or post #2 above, you would know that this is incorrect.

UCSD, like Berkeley and UCLA, has more than 20% out-of-state enrollment. UCI is close, at about 19%. UCD and UCSB are in the 12-15% range, which is lower but still “meaningful” (and since you mentioned “public colleges”, not just UCs, Cal Poly is 17%). Among the UCs, only UCSC, UCR, and UCM have less than 10% out-of-state enrollment.

The UC system as a whole is at 16.5% out-of-state enrollment. The proposal would prevent further growth in out-of-state enrollment at UCB, UCLA, and UCSD (which are already above the 20% threshold). It would limit future out-of-state enrollment growth at UCI, UCD, and UCSB (which have the potential to reach the 20% threshold). In practice, it would probably have little effect at UCSC, UCR, and UCM, since they are unlikely to approach the 20% threshold anyway. The proposed rule may or may not be a good idea, but it has the potential to affect six of the nine undergraduate UC campuses.