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<p>As much as i love UCLA, i’ll admit, they’re a huge money grubbing institution. The greatest thing they provide for a small but very reasonable price imo is the Ashe center which is an amazing bargain.</p>
<p>But getting back to the point, as someone who’s spends a ton of time at both USC and UCLA, i can tell you that the quality difference isn’t as big as it seems even though the former is private and the latter is public (at least i haven’t really noticed.) There are some small inconveniences here and there that i might not find at a private university (like being able to pay with my Visa card; or having the restrooms cleaned more often) but it isn’t anything that’s made an impact on my education. </p>
<p>Addmitedly, this quarter classes became full very quickly, and many conflicted with one another, but i was only waitlisted for one of my classes (which i got added into) so again, i haven’t witnessed too many budget problems.</p>
<p>With regard to the Japanese garden, as sad as i am to see it gone, it just wasn’t economically viable for UCLA to keep it for two reasons: 1) lack of partking (only two parking spots) made UCLA extremely limit the number of people who could attend said garden (i believe last year it was only 2k) and it cost +100-150k per year to maintain. Given the amount of people who benefit from it, it wouldn’t make economic sense to keep it.</p>
<p>But i do agree with you, that with the exception of UCLA and Berkeley, the other UCs may perhaps not be the best to gauge.</p>