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Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
141

<p>
[quote]
Sakky, haven't we gone over this topic to death? First, we're baseing all of this on hypotheticals. I agree that if somehow Harvard and Berkeley shared an applicant who would be eligable for harvards free ride, and harvard would share that infro with berkeley, then it wouldn't be a bad idea for berkeley to say, "hey, will match that." But they don't do that, so it doesn't really matter. Why not spend time an energy thinking about things that are feasible, like improving the transfer of data from one department to another, because I know for a fact that that would affect more Cal students in a positive way than giving free rides to people that wouldn't take them anyway.

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<p>True, GS, but don't you see what I'm trying to do? You have to walk before you can run. Before Cal can think about trying to match Harvard head-to-head, Cal should at least try to match people in terms of scholarships to the poor. It's the least that Cal can do for now. After that is done, Cal can then worry about trying to match Harvard in terms of prestige and desirability. But first things first.</p>

<p>However, I will give you credit because it's due. At least you agree with me that Berkeley ought to match. I don't understand why others wouldn't agree. To my detractors, give me a good reason for why Berkeley shouldn't match? You guys are giving me all this pushback about how Berkeley educates a greater percentage of poor people than does Harvard, and all this other stuff, or that you don't know how many of these scholarships Harvard gives out, yet none of that answers the question as to why Berkeley should not match the Harvard's scholarships to the poor. Why should Berkeley not do this?</p>

142

<p>See, the thing is that I think you have it backwards in terms of walking before running. The best thing for berkeley to do would be to make the students that it has now, as well as those in the immediate future, have a better experience at Cal by fixing some of the "red tape" problems. I believe we agree on the fact that almost nobody would go to Berkeley if given the chance at Harvard for the same price, so why waste energy trying to compete with them just yet. Work the kinks out from the inside and then maybe people would vountarily come to Cal instead of Harvard.</p>

143

<p>Sakky, <a href="http://www.sjsu.edu/portfolio/effectiveness/data_elements/enrollments/#2d%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.sjsu.edu/portfolio/effectiveness/data_elements/enrollments/#2d&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Check out the Pell Grant percentages Sakky. </p>

<p>I don't expect you to acknowledge that Berkeley educates more poor people than SJSU.</p>

144

<p>I really need to stop wasting my time.
<a href="http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/01/14_financialaid.shtm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/01/14_financialaid.shtm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Web Feature
UC Berkeley Web Feature</p>

<p>Berkeley's financial aid future grows stormier as Pell Grants dip, Cal Grants remain steady</p>

<p>By Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter | 14 January 2005</p>

<p>BERKELEY – Even a brief letup in a month of downpours can feel like sunshine, that is, if you're UC Berkeley's Office of Financial Aid.</p>

<p>On Dec. 23, the U.S. Department of Education announced it was changing its eligibility formula for Pell Grants, which are awards — not loans — ranging from $400 to $4,050 that low-income undergraduate students can use for college costs. The change will result in as many as 89,000 students nationwide losing their 2005-06 Pell Grant funding, according to American Council on Education (ACE) estimates.</p>

<p>UC Berkeley has 7,800 Pell Grant recipients, representing over a third of its undergraduate student body. (Berkeley has a greater percentage of students from low-income families than any research university except UCLA.)</p>

<p>To repeat...<br>
(Berkeley has a greater percentage of students from low-income families than any research university except UCLA.)</p>

<p>That includes public schools, Sakky. That includes lower rated schools, Sakky. That includes schools with students with lower SAT scores, Sakky. That includes schools that are supposed to have poorer students when you llook at grades and SAT scores, Sakky. That includes every school in Berkeley's class, Sakky.</p>

<p>Pell-mell changes</p>

<p>Pell Grants are the federal government's single largest source of grant aid for post-secondary education, with more than 5 million U.S. low-income students relying on them to defray tuition and other expenses. For the academic year 2002-03, UC schools occupied the top six slots in percentage of students who have Pell Grants, with UCLA at 35.1 percent and Berkeley at 32.4 percent. In comparison, only 11.7 percent of Stanford students and 6.8 percent of Harvard students had Pell Grants during the same period. </p>

<p>There's your lovely Harvard, Sakky. A 23 billion dollar endowment and 6.8 percent of the students get Pell Grants. What a generous place!!! Every school should shoot for a 6.8 % Pell Grant Student Body!!!!</p>

<p>Now if we could only find out who those 6.8% are. Oh yes, that is not public iinformation. Sakky, that is a good project for you. Find out who these people are and tell Berkeley. Then maybe, Berkeley can do what you want. </p>

<p>l</p>

145

<p>I thought you might go there, Dstark, because I've seen that data myself, but the problem with that is that SJSU has a quite large continent of night-school students, who are working fulltime, something that Berkeley and Harvard (or similar schools) do not have. If you are working fulltime, you are usually not eligible for Pell Grants or most other kinds of aid. Lest you think that is unfair, I think we can all agree that if Berkeley ran a big night school, then its percentage of Pell Grant recipients would drop precipitously. The sad fact is that the more you work, the less aid you will get. </p>

<p>What we need to compare is the percentage of 'true' students at SJSU who are not in the night school (or otherwise not working fulltime) vs. the percentage of students at Berkeley who are receiving aid. We can both go down and delve for this information if you wish.</p>

<p>However, again, none of that is here nor there. The question stands - should Berkeley match Harvard or not? If not, why not? I see that you still never want to take on the real question at hand. I believe Berkeley should match, and I have yet to hear of a good reason for why they shouldn't.</p>

<p>Now, to GS, I would argue that it's not a waste of energy. You said it yourself - few people would take the Berkeley deal even if they match. So that means that there is no reason not to do it. Would it just be a gesture? Maybe. But even a gesture is better than nothing.</p>

146

<p>How many free ride students at Harvard are athletes?</p>

147

<p>Just for anybody else out there, you can receive a Pell Grant and be a part time student. There is no restriction on night school.</p>

148

<p>Whoa, this thread moves quickly when it moves.</p>

<p>"And perhaps you'd like to review one of my old posts in this thread where I actually calculate the cost to Berkeley. Allow me to review it. Harvard admits about 1500 new freshman per year. Let's say that 10% of them (or 150) are getting a free ride. I think that number is too large, but let's use it. Then let's say that all 150 of them also come from California (the free ride only extends to California residents). This is also a ridiculous assumption because obviously many of that 150 poor students who get into Harvard will not be from California, but let's use the assumption anyway. So to fully match, Berkeley would have to provide a maximum 150 free rides *$22,000 a year each for instate residents for a total of $33 million. I'm sorry, but that is not a lot of money."</p>

<p>Okay, let's set up your premise. There are 150 students that apply to both Berkeley and Harvard that get free ride offers from Harvard. Berkeley should offer these students in particular free rides in order to attract them away from the Harvard, correct?</p>

<p>So let's say your assumptions are all correct. Yes, even you don't think that's true, but for simplicity's sake let's say you are about right. Now, Berkeley doesn't know which students were accepted to Harvard, and it also doesn't know which students received full rides to Harvard.</p>

<p>They can, however, assume that most likely the students that received lucrative scholarships from Harvard (or any highly rated private school) are likely to be the best of the incoming class. Hence, for Berkeley to make an effort to award full ride scholarships to the top of the incoming class would be about as close as Berkeley could get to "stealing" Harvard admits with full ride scholarships.</p>

<p>Hence, the R&C Scholarship, which provides full rides to about 200 incoming students each year (freshman and transfers). Of course, the assumption that this costs them $22,000 per person is off, as you've noted, since the R&C Scholarship awards based on financial need as determined by the government (cost - student contribution - parent contribution = $$). And if $$ < 1000, then the scholarship awards $1,000 per year instead.</p>

<p>Berkeley makes a reasonable effort to provide scholarships to students that they believe might have lucrative offers from private schools as well. That's a fact. They do not match Harvard, or any other school, just as Harvard does not match Berkeley or any other school I'm sure. I really doubt Harvard sends Berkeley a nice little list of all of the students that it has admitted along with the amount of financial aid going to those students (since I'm sure Harvard appreciates certain confidentiality agreements).</p>

<p>You're completely correct in your assumption that Berkeley does not match Harvard's financial aid. However, your expectation that Berkeley should either know Harvard's offers to its students is unreasonable, and using a reasonable assumption, namely that Berkeley can assume that its high-caliber applicants are more likely to be offered lucrative scholarships from other schools, you will see that Berkeley does act reasonably in offering financial aid.</p>

<p>EDIT: Oh, and that calculation was hardly a calculation. It was more like picking random numbers and multiplying them.</p>

149

<p>Zip, you sound highly pretentious. The fact that you even mention your SAT is proof that you DO inherently value SAT scores. </p>

<p>I agree with most of what Sakky has said here. There is quite a bit of crime in Berkeley, but it's mostly non-violent crime, as far as I know. I moved here from NYC and definitely felt safer in NYC than I do here.</p>

<p>UC Berkeley's undergrad program is overshadowed by its graduate programs. I think many of the professors at Berkeley are brilliant, but unfortunately undergrads have little contact with them. I guess I was uninformed before I came to Berkeley: I never imagined that graduate students would be grading my papers, not my professors.</p>

<p>Also, private schools offered me a FAR better financial package than Cal, even considering the merit and need-based scholarships Cal gave me.</p>

150

<p>"Regents' scholarships" are university-wide, not campus-wide, scholarships. That is, UC as a whole offers Regents' scholarships to the top students applying to each of its component campuses. So it is somewhat misleading to say that UC Davis offers Regents' scholarships to steal from UC Berkeley; it would be more accurate to say that UC offers Regents' scholarships to its top applicants at each campus in order to encourage students to stay in UC. (A side note: I think UC established Regents' scholarships some time in the early 1960s.)</p>

<p>Chancellor's scholarships, on the other hand, are funded at the campus level, so you could make an argument that Chancellor's scholarships at the less prominent campuses are aimed at "stealing" students from the more prominent ones.</p>

<p>If you think about it, the names of the scholarships make sense: the UC wide one is known as the Regents' scholarship because the Regents lead UC, while the campus-level ones are known as Chancellor's scholarships because each individual campus is led by a Chancellor.</p>

<p>I don't know exactly how Berkeley funds its Regents' and Chancellor's scholarship. As far as I know, it's the only campus to combine the two scholarships. Perhaps this is a legacy of Berkeley's being the University of California before the other campuses were established?</p>

151

<p>
[quote]
Just for anybody else out there, you can receive a Pell Grant and be a part time student. There is no restriction on night school.

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<p>The restriction comes not because you can't be a part-time student and get a Pell, the restriction comes from the money you make while you're working. You make 'too much' and you will earn enough money to push you above the Pell limit. And the truth is, SJSU has plenty of working adults who work fulltime and then attend SJSU at night. </p>

<p>Nearly 1/3 (31%) of all SJSU undergrads are 25 or older. I'm fairly certain that 1/3 of all Berkeley undergrads are not that old. I'm also fairly certain that if you're 25 or older, you probably hold a fulltime job to support yourself. Either that, or you're a day student being supported by a fulltime working spouse. I rather doubt there are a lot of people of age 25 and up that are still being financially supported by Mommy and Daddy. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.csumentor.edu/campustour/undergraduate/23/San_Jose_State_University/San_Jose_State_University6.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.csumentor.edu/campustour/undergraduate/23/San_Jose_State_University/San_Jose_State_University6.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
How many free ride students at Harvard are athletes?

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<p>Since Harvard does not provide athletic scholarships, I would say zero (beyond whatever the financial aid program already supports). And what about Berkeley? I think we can all agree that Berkeley has given free rides to people just because they can play ball. Let's admit it. Jason Kidd didn't come to Berkeley for the academics. </p>

<p>
[quote]
There's your lovely Harvard, Sakky. A 23 billion dollar endowment and 6.8 percent of the students get Pell Grants. What a generous place!!! Every school should shoot for a 6.8 % Pell Grant Student Body!!!!

[/quote]
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<p>Once again, you refuse to deal with the point at hand. I have never disputed that, as a whole, Berkeley tends to be cheaper than Harvard. I have never disputed that Berkeley tends to serve more poor people than Harvard. However, the specific point is, what Berkeley should do about the Harvard fullride policy. That is the question on the table. Who cares about all the other stuff that's going on? None of that has anything to do with the question at hand. From all the pushback you keep giving, you are basically saying that Berkeley should not match, and I have yet to hear you state a specific reason why Berkeley should not match. You talk about all this other stuff that's going on, but none of that is a good reason for Berkeley not to match. </p>

<p>So I will pose the question once again. Presuming that Berkeley can, should Berkeley not match? It's a simple yes or no question. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Now, Berkeley doesn't know which students were accepted to Harvard, and it also doesn't know which students received full rides to Harvard.

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<p>I agree with you that the first part is problematic. However, the second is not. Harvard has explicitly announced its policy of providing free rides to all students who come from family incomes below X. Berkeley has access to information regarding family incomes. Forget about trying to match the aid that Harvard gives to EACH student, and just look at the Harvard's publicly declared aid policy.</p>

152

<p>Sakky, you're over. You can come up with all the BS you want, but Berkeley educates more poor people than San Jose State. Everybody knows it.</p>

<p>Berkeley gives scholarships to its best students. It gives scholarships to its poorest students. It does this better than any school in the US except UCLA.</p>

<p>Read the story that came out in the Boston Globe today about Harvard and the other IVYs You have to register.</p>

<p>See ya.</p>

153

<p>Cutest, you're about one month or is it 2 months behind.</p>

<p>Is pretentious even meant to be an insult? So what if people value SAT scores...</p>

154

<p>The discussion has turned away from R&C stuff, but I'll post this anyway. </p>

<p>
[quote]
</p>

<p>The Regents' Scholarship Program began in 1962 and is funded by the University of California Office of the President. </p>

<p>The Chancellor's Scholarship Program was established in 1981 as a counterpart to the Regents' Scholarship so as to increase the number of scholarships offered to outstanding Berkeley undergraduates. Chancellor's Scholarships are funded by private donations and campus funds. </p>

<p>The Regents' and Chancellor's Scholarship Program is sponsored by the faculty Committee on Undergraduate Scholarships and Honors (CUSH) and is administered by Undergraduate Scholarships, Prizes and Honors.</p>

<p>

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<p><a href="http://students.berkeley.edu/fao/Scholarships/RCorigin.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://students.berkeley.edu/fao/Scholarships/RCorigin.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>