<p>heh... isnt CA in a budget crisis at the moment? with its educational funds? (my gov. class is in a huge debate on this right now)</p>
<p>Yes California is in a budget crisis at the moment; will continue to be for a while.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the UCs are still being sustained with enough cashflow from the state and alumni. Chancellor of UCLA is seeking partnerships with the community to get more private funds in to the university.</p>
<p>You forget, the UC system is great because california governors and legislators take the caution to fund it.. well, they did until arnie moved into town, now its been a different story. To be sure, the UC system has more clout than any other in the world. Case in point: that new SAT that you juniors are griping about, you have the UCs to thank, it was their persistent bugging of the college board about a need for better writing skills in students that got it. Virginia's program is certainly great.. UVA and W&M are both great schools.</p>
<p>Oh, and you are all overlooking a very important UC: Hastings, right here in san francisco, is a UC. its solely a law school, so few people outside law know of it, but its one of the most highly regarded law schools around. </p>
<p>Also, because cali has more US reps than any other state, we've been able to secure federal research grants for our universities, so all the good research these days is getting done here.</p>
<p>Alumni finding UCs? This is a huge part of the budget problem, alum don't give and endowments are pathetic.</p>
<p>Seriously. Alumni funding for the UC's is pathetic, even with the school spirit that UCLA and Cal foster.</p>
<p>At least LA's Chancellor Carnesale is now starting to secure large private donations.</p>
<p>Alumni funding is pathetic; nonetheless, they are some alumnis who give money.</p>
<p>UCLA's Chancellor is soliciting (on the corner of Sunset and Bellagio...j/k) funds with private corporations in an effort to bring money in.</p>
<p>perhaps alumni "funding" is so low because around 95% of UC alumni "fund" the school every year with their taxes, so they don't feel the need to do anything more. Also, because public schools rely on public funding, they need to spend less resources on funding recruitment. My mom went to a private school and gets a letter about every two months from her alma mater asking for money. My dad went to UCSC and has never been begged for a dime. He was much happier at his school, but guess who gets the money? NOT UCSC.
The USNWR ranking is skewed with public schools being too low because of this fact, and your comments above reflect the same oversight.</p>
<p>i dont see how endowments are pathetic when the university of california system has a 4.37 billion dollar endowment (as of 2003). granted, it is split up among many schools, but that's still not a figure to be considered weak.</p>
<p>The UCs have low endownments because they accept too many poor students. The avg income for families of students at Berkeley is around 65,000 (Whites are the only exceptions with avg. family incomes of 100,000). </p>
<p>I'm not sure what the figure is at UCLA, but I assume it's around the same.</p>
<p>Flagships Berkeley and UCLA would be much better off becoming private universities.</p>
<p>They would make so much more money. Money from private doners would easily cover up the gap left by state funds. Just look at what USC is doing and how much money they are getting. No one likes that elitest campus, but they make a living by accepting almost everyone with family incomes of 500,000+. </p>
<p>My friend was rejected by Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD, but accepted to USC. Why? His family income was well above $1,000,000. Think what would happen if they guy went to Berkeley or UCLA. Goodbye budget problems.</p>
<p>It is weak when you look at it per capita. The UCs were solidly middle class for a very long time. Lack of giving has nothing to do with salaries of alum, for some reason, they just don't give. Of note is that Californians in general give very little to charity relative to income.</p>
<p>zagat, that's interesting... just wondering where do you get that statistic from ?</p>
<p>There's a very positive correlation between tuition amount and alum giving, that seems counterintuitive. Why would you give a school that charges your family 35,000+ in tuition?</p>
<p>It seems that the only explanation is that 35,000 is nothing in the eyes of a few.</p>
<p>Bubbles:</p>
<p>Since when is a household income of 65,000 poor? The median household income in the US is around $41,000 and approximatley $48,000 for California. </p>
<p>The mission of a public university system is not to only educate the elite, and affirmative action for the rich is not the solution to the UC's budget problems.</p>
<p>Also: Correlation does not prove causation. People don't give more because you charge more, rather those who give more tend to go to where they charge more (conspicuous consumption perhaps?)</p>
<p>I'm not from the US but just wanted to echo junebug "And, um, what makes California so special?".</p>
<p>I'm a senior and I only applied to 2 schools in CA (Oxy - accepted, CMC - pending) but chose not to go. I've never really been into going to college in CA.. I think it'd just be an awesome place to visit (I've only been to the east coast).
I guess the sunshine and pleasant weather isn't SO appealing to me because I live in the tropics and have gorgeous weather already.</p>
<p>IMO, east coast is where to be when it comes to university. And I see myself more of an east coast kinda girl.
I understand that there are a lot of top schools in CA, hence so many people on CC discussing them.
But I think that schools on the west coast have a completely different feel to the ones on the east, so it's probably useless to compare them.</p>
<p>I have been accepted to both UC Santa Barbara and UC Davis and my major is physics. I just toured the campus the other day and it was incredible. I am going to tour Davis (only an hour from my home compared to 5 hours to Santa Barbara) and make my decision. Any suggestions? I was also accepted to UC Santa Cruz but am not interested and was declined at UC San Diego and waiting on UC Berkeley although I wasn't interested in SD and Berkeley.</p>
<p>perfectwall: that belongs in the UC general forum</p>
<p>"i dont see how endowments are pathetic when the university of california system has a 4.37 billion dollar endowment (as of 2003). granted, it is split up among many schools, but that's still not a figure to be considered weak." -kfc4u</p>
<p>kfc4u, how can you say that? As much as I respect the University of California, and even your UCLA, you have to admit that is a HORRIBLE number. 4.37 billion collectively for 10 campuses, several of which are top 50? Come on.</p>
<p>Stanford University, at 8.6 billion, ALONE has almost twice that of all 10 UC campuses. Granted, that's Stanford. Let's take another California university. USC, at 2.7 billion, alone has more than half -- and an it's a full billion more than Berkely, and 1.4 billion more than UCLA. Heck, Texas A & M, at 3.1 billion, has more than Berkeley and UCLA combined! Still think it's a number to be reckoned with?</p>
<p>"Perhaps alumni "funding" is so low because around 95% of UC alumni "fund" the school every year with their taxes, so they don't feel the need to do anything more. Also, because public schools rely on public funding, they need to spend less resources on funding recruitment" -TheCity</p>
<p>Two issues. First, the UC's are funded by every taxpayer in the state of California. When I am a USC alumnus, if I choose to remain a California resident, my money will be going towards the UC's. We all fund the system.</p>
<p>Second, public schools, namely the UC's, are being forced more and more to spend more on private fund recruitment. Why? The public funding that public schools enjoy benefit studently primarily in the form of low in-state tuition. This does not mean public funding comes even close to making up for the deficit caused by such tution rates. Nor does it mean that public funding, especially these days in California, can make public schools competitive with their private counterparts in terms of endowments, new faculty recruitment, capital construction, or basically anything pertaining to large fiscal expenditures. </p>
<p>In his 2005 State of the University address a few weeks ago, UCLA's Carnesale signaled that this is the era when the UC's will need to actively encourage private giving more and more in order to remain competitive. He's right when you consider the competition. Stanford is sitting on more than twice the money of the UC's combined. USC has received more gifts over $100 million than any other institution - all in the last 12 years and whose College of Letters Arts & Sciences is spending $100 million on elite (read: buy them away from Princeton) faculty recruitment.</p>
<p>At least UCLA has its focus in the right direction. But will the other UC's follow suit?</p>
<p>"No one likes that elitest campus, but they make a living by accepting almost everyone with family incomes of 500,000+. </p>
<p>My friend was rejected by Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD, but accepted to USC. Why? His family income was well above $1,000,000. Think what would happen if they guy went to Berkeley or UCLA. Goodbye budget problems."</p>
<p>First, spell elitist correctly. Second, show me a source that says USC makes a living by accepting rich kids. Thirdly, I'll say "good luck" when you try and do so considering USC admissions is need-blind. What does that mean? Admissions has NO IDEA, none whatsoever, what your financial situation is when they review your application.</p>
<p>Someone in another posting found a link where USC both had a really high median family income statistic, but also was at the top of the list in need-based aid giving, meaning the financial situations of their students skewed towards the extremes. I'd post the link, but frankly I'm wondering why I'm even disputing someone who makes a comments like yours in the first place. And congratulations on considering the experience of your friend to be in-depth, empirical evidence that supports your claim.</p>
<p>Perhaps a USC education would set your statistical methodologies straight.</p>
<p>I have empirical, statistically pure, unbiased word-of-mouth evidence that USC is full of rich dickheads. </p>
<p>Everyone from my school who's ever gone there has been one. :)</p>