The reader who made the screen-shottedcomment went to UCD undergrad and UCB for their PhD and is in frequent contact with UC faculty for their consulting work. Comments from current and former students in the Reddit thread unanimously support the contention of the (lack of) of prioritization of undergraduate educations among the competing priorities and missions of UCs.
This statement on CC in a spin-off thread from this one summarizes things well:
“Sure they are large publics with all that entails: large classes with a hundred to hundreds of students, upper-division classes of 75-100 for popular majors like Econ, little personal attention, counseling generally whoever is at the window when you show up in line, understaffed units like career counseling, often not enough university housing for all 4 years, and so on. Probably not that different from your in-state U system.
But as a CA taxpayer I can assure you we love OOS students! OOS students are always full-pay and the $125K or more each one contributes in OOS fees helps keep UC afloat.”
Some students will do well with the large classes, overcrowded conditions, anonymity, minimal handholding and difficulty in accessing support services and others will not. But I don’t think it helps anyone to pretend that this isn’t the reality of the undergraduate experience of the majority of students.
And again, I would suggest more curiosity and skepticism about how rankings are really derived.