Will UC's fee decline in the next couple years?

College Search & Selection
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<p>It depends on the major and school. Some majors like math and physics have fairly standardized lower division courses that are offered everywhere. Some CCCs closely model their courses for some subjects on the courses at a nearby UC or CSU (e.g. Santa Monica College and other LA area CCCs / UCLA, or Cuesta College / Cal Poly SLO). However, some majors are very hard to find the lower division courses for at any CCC (e.g. computer science at Berkeley – of the five lower division CS/EE courses needed, most CCCs offer none, some offer half of one, a few offer one, and one (or maybe two) offers two).</p>

<p>Also, an advanced student in math or something may find it limiting to be unable to take upper division courses as a freshman or sophomore.</p>

<p>But there are plenty of students who could do just fine starting off at a CCC and transferring to complete a bachelor’s degree at a UC or CSU. A student who is very undecided may find that going to CCC is an advantage in that there is less financial and institutional pressure to choose a major quickly. A CCC student who switches from history to physics after three semesters may transfer and graduate three semesters late, but at least the three semesters are cheap CCC semesters. A UC or CSU student who want to make the same switch may not be able to (institutional policies against staying too long); even if allowed, three extra UC or CSU semesters will be much more expensive than three extra CCC semesters.</p>

<p>Fans of smaller classes may prefer the small CCC lower division classes over the large UC and CSU lower division classes.</p>

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<p>Many cc courses are taught by former U faculty that failed to get tenure, or by faculty that did not land jobs or want jobs at U. Many U lower level courses are taught by ill-prepared graduate students with a poor grasp of the English language. With the exception of teacher evaluation surveys issued at the end of the course, quality control for instructors at U is non-existent. In contrast, competition for teaching positions at cc’s is fierce and selection is based on teaching excellence rather than research success. Draw your own conclusions about the quality of teaching for lower division courses at the two types of institutions.</p>

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<p>Room and board at Minnesota and Wisconsin is 1/2 the cost of the UC’s. Minnesota oos tuition is $16k/year, Wisconsin is $23k/year.
Academically, Wisconsin is ranked with Cal and UCLA. Minnesota is in the Davis, SB range.
Thee cc route was not an option for either of my kids as they had too many AP courses in high school and the cc had nothing to offer them. They both started with 34 credits, had all the liberal electives satisfied and would have been bored. I also see which students funnel into the Saddleback cc and the majority are fringe “students” looking for 2 more years of screwing off before they drop out and are on the lube rack.
The ELC going to 9% is a big deal. The UC system will be “dumbied down” in the name of social justice and a ton of great students will leave the state and never come back. Over 50% of California residents do not pay any state or federal income tax. The UC’s allow illegals to pay in state tuition? OMG, this state has now “jumped the shark”.</p>

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<p>From what I have seen, the primary class session in a big university is almost always done by a faculty member (the exceptions that I have seen are mainly freshman English writing courses, taught by English graduate students and the like, where the “poor grasp of the English language” is less of an issue). Labs and discussions do tend to be done by graduate student instructors.</p>

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<p>^^Correct. Courses at UC are taught by Professors and/or Adjuncts, not grad students, which ‘teach’ or lead discussion sections and labs. (btw: many of the the English adjuncts are great at teaching Frosh writing bcos that is all that they do – no research required.)</p>

<p>One huge downside with the cc route is availability of transferable classes. Classes are small at a juco, they are capped by classroom size (or union contract). And since a cc appeals to anyone who is 18 and breathing, the courses cover the gamut from elementary school math and writing to college prep HS material to college-level work. Jucos are ill-equipped (and under funded) to offer many advanced courses for those seeking UC, such as advanced math or science. Many can’t even offer much beyond AP foreign language.</p>

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<p>Community college will be fine as long as you research the courses you need before hand and stick to the major colleges. Pasadena City College and Santa Monica College, for example, both offer a variety of CS courses. Since there are many community colleges, you should be able to find a large one in your area.</p>

<p>(For example, in the Pasadena area, I had the options of Rio Hondo, Citrus, Glendale, and East Los Angeles Colleges before I settled for PCC.)</p>

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<p>Bay:</p>

<p>I wasn’t saying that one should attend cc over UC or that teaching would be comparable at the two. One of the main reasons to figure cc into the picture is for cost. Popeyoung was comparing a cost of a UC instate education against Wisconsin and Iowa, oos. I stated that if cost were a factor, he/she should place cc into the picture because a typical CA student would rather have two years at a cc and two at UC rather than four at those two schools.</p>

<p>Bluebayou: </p>

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<p>That’s one of the reasons why they have the Assist website.</p>

<p>If a student graduated with decent grades from hs, he/she might be able to enter a cc’s honors/scholars program, which could/would help with priority enrollment of xferable courses. </p>

<p>Some cc’s may even have specific counselors for these students to help the student stay within the transferable coursework of UC.</p>

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<p>Open admissions, true…</p>

<p>But I don’t know what relevance this has with those who have the motivation towards xfering to UC; in fact, having more less-motivated people around one can help one obtain the mostly A’s and rest B’s one needs in xfering to UCLA or Cal or mostly B’s and some A’s needed to xfer to the other UC’s. </p>

<p>That’s why I said cc is much, much less competitive, which might help the student with a boost of confidence he/she needs to be successful over the last two years at a UC; whereas if the same entered from hs, the competitive aspect of a UC Davis might have sunk his/her gpa in the first two years, making it unrecoverable over the last two. </p>

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<p>This is overstated and flat-out wrong…</p>

<p>Many more high-school students are choosing to take cc courses because, say, their hs doesn’t offer much AP. You stated this yourself.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t know of any cc which wouldn’t offer calc or fundamentals of chem or biology or physics on a college level. This is all that’s really needed to xfer for a UC science degree. </p>

<p>Granted, there are some really good cc’s to which sentiment alluded, SMC, PCC, etc, but if a student stays within the coursework of basis science, calc, biology, chem; or the basis coursework of social sciences or humanities, history, psych, philosophy, then he/she should be fine at even at East LA, West LA, or some of the really underenrolled cc’s in out-of-the-way areas.</p>

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<p>May I suggest you read UCDavis’ website for Bio transfers? (Davis recommends organic chem, for example, which is offered at my local cc.)</p>

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<p>FACT: my local juco dropped Intermediate French two years ago. It now only offers the equivalent of AP French, which makes transferring more difficult in wannabe French majors. (And the incorrect part is???)</p>

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<p>It has to do with the availability of transferable courses being offered. If many students at the juco require remedial courses, the juco offers them (which is good social policy). But since the juco is cash constrained (as are the UCs and Cal States), they have to prioritize what they can offer and when. Cash is fungible: they can offer an IGETC transferable course or a remedial course with the same money, but not both. If a juco has to offer remedial (HS-level English) it is limited in offering additional sections in college-level (transferable) English.</p>

<p>For example, I just perused the schedule of our local community college. By rough count, there are more remedial English courses offered than college-level transferable English courses. (Of course, it all depends on the student population, but also the teachers.)</p>

<p>I make no comment on the competition or motivation of others. And I do believe that a cc is a great option for some, particularly the Honors programs. But folks should just beware that the budget cuts have trickled-down.</p>

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<p>Correct.</p>

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<p>For transfer purposes, one does not need to take all of the courses at the same community college. For example, if one is targeting transfer to CS at UCLA, it may be hard to find a community college with all five of the lower division CS courses. However, Santa Monica has four of them (including the uncommon one, UCLA’s CS M51A), and some other nearby community colleges have the one that Santa Monica is missing (UCLA’s CS 33).</p>

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<p>You have a higher chance of being accepted to UC’s if you transfer from a CC dont you?</p>

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<p>Correct … ‘recommends.’</p>

<p>And if the student’s local cc doesn’t offer it, and he/she has extremely shallow pockets – in other words, he/she can’t be traveling to the nearest cc, say, 75-150 miles away that offers organic chem because of these extremely limited funds … do you really think that Davis wouldn’t recognize this hardship and not admit him/her?</p>

<p>I realize that UCLA often shoots down a student because he/she is missing a very important core class. But that’s mainly because the student didn’t live up to taking this class: it was offered at his/her cc; he/she dropped it in the spring semester and therefore had his/her admission revoked; etc.</p>

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<p>See, I can play this game also. ;)</p>

<p>The bold is way too-encompassing.</p>

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<p>A little too encompassing again. Tell you what, give me a handful of cc’s this applies to – pick the worst ones that you know of in this regard – and I’ll look at the courses each offers next week to see if I concur, whatever means, PM or in this thread. I agree wholeheartedly that there are much better cc’s than others: SMC, El Camino, Pasadena, Glendale, Pierce, De Anza, Foothill, Diablo Valley, SBCC, etc (SFCC is too busy according to many – really hard to get classes there); and if the student has the means to attend one of these – this list is only a partial one – then he/she probably should attend.</p>

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<p>I don’t think entering, say, SMC’s, Pierce’s Scholars/Honors Program would be all that hard; I don’t know, maybe it is. I agree, that there would be cash constraints on the system, which might impose caps on the numbers enrolled in these programs.</p>

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<p>UCs do admit transfers from community colleges who are missing lower division courses because their community colleges do not offer them. Berkeley CS is an example --of the five lower division CS/EE courses, most community colleges have none of them, some have half of one, a few have one, and one or two have two. Of course, it does mean that students who do transfer to Berkeley CS have to do a lot of “catch up” and have limited upper division schedule flexibility.</p>

<p>However, it is a good idea for a community college student to check all nearby community colleges in order to maximize lower division course coverage, to reduce the amount of “catch up” needed after transfer.</p>

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<p>ucbalumnus:</p>

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<p>Valid points…</p>

<p>But delaying one’s graduation in a timely fashion can apply to those who defer their application process to UC by trying shine their cc CV’s.</p>

<p>And there is an attitude sometimes of, “I think I’ll defer applying to UC to try to see if I can get into UCLA or Cal.” This is often prevalent in the ccc crowd, of which I’m not real enamored. In other words … get on with your academic careers. In this way, I agree, that cc can be too laidback.</p>

<p>There are doubtlessly some ccc’s that are more CSU preparatories than UC. Preparing and getting students up to speed, basic and even remedial- coursework-intensive ccc’s, would be more of a CSU function; having higher-level coursework would be more geared towards UC. CCC’s have to strike a balance because they are supposed to be feeders for both.</p>