<p>Would it be a good idea to separate Cal & UCSF from the UC System and just merge them together?</p>
<p>I'm not sure how the budget allocation works in California, as well as, in the UC System, but in what percentage of the UC System budget do Cal and UCSF receive? Assuming both institutions receive $1 billion a year from the UC System, would it be a good idea if these two institutions - the crowns of the UC schools - be separated from the system and just receive funding directly from the state? I think that's less bureaucratic - budget is released directly to Cal president thus less departments and people are involved before the money is spent for the university purposes.</p>
<p>The positive side of this is that - there would be less bureaucracy. Another is Cal would have an autonomous rights. It can implement what they want and don't have to subject themselves to the regulations and restrictions of the UC System. Cal, together with UCSF, can draw their own curricula and implement them when they want.</p>
<p>The merging of Cal and UCSF would boost both institutions images. Cal would now have a legit, bona fide med school of their own and would primarily cater to their premed students. Together, they could offer an integrated curriculum which accepts students fresh from HS and offer the slots to the best candidates, saving a year and MCAT, in case the students don't perform in the MCAT pretty well.</p>
<p>There are a lot of positives I can think of, but let's just save them for now.</p>
<p>As for the negatives, it would probably lost their name as both Cal and UCSF wouldn't be able to use the name UC anymore.</p>
<p>What's your take on this California parents?</p>
<p>I see no advantage. If Cal was split off from UC, it would probably just end up creating another parallel bureaucracy. It would be battling for state funding separately from the rest of the UC campuses. The UC system as a whole is going to garner far more support from far more people in far more parts of the state than just Cal standing by itself. </p>
<p>As a California parent, I have no interest in turning the flagship UC into a school that would “primarily cater to premed students” and save them a year of school and (the horror!) sitting the MCAT. Cal has so many academic strengths–it would be a waste to turn it into a one-trick pony.</p>
<p>The two schools have such totally different cultures that it’s hard for me to imagine them as one university, nor do I see the benefit to the students and professors at these two renowned schools from such a merger.</p>
<p>I think much too much is made of the budget issues as regard UC Berkely, UCLA and UCSF. These are all extraordinary schools. Top students worldwide would always want to attend them, almost regardless of the tuition. There’s no magic at the moment in California as regard university funding. The state is going through a rough patch, and eventually it will come through. I don’t expect a mass exodus of top talent from the top schools.</p>
<p>UCSF and UCB already have a joint MA/MD programat the graduate level. It’s not the current organizational structure that’s stopping them from implementing an undergrad program like you’re suggesting. Moreover, UC Davis and UCSF medical schools have some joint programs and share faculty. Presumably be harder if they weren’t under one administration.</p>
<p>I agree with Slithey: What a waste to turn Cal into a premed feeder school. Plus, the last thing California need is more balkanization of higher education.</p>
<p>I thought of bonding them together so that Berkeley would have a medical school of its own. A school as powerful and as established as Berkeley wouldn’t look or sound complete without a medical school, and it’s not a good idea that Berkeley would make one for its own since UCSF is already there, very near Cal and serving the same locality - Bay area.</p>
<p>Merging the two would be a 180 degree reversal of what they spent decades doing. Back in the days when there was only one UC, which located at Berkeley, the San Franciso site was in fact Berkeley’s medical school. Just as the site in Davis that would eventually evolve into UC Davis was Berkeley’s agricuture station. </p>
<p>The UCSF leaders spent decades struggling to establish UCSF as a separate campus. Even after it offically became UCSF, medical students for years still took some of their science classes in the first two years of medical school at the Berkeley campus before fully tranferring to to the SF campus for their clinical courses. I just can’t see UCSF guys agreeing to reverse what it took them decades of hard work to achieve.</p>
<p>That would only work if both were allowed to privatize. The big bucks comes from Sacramento, and they still hold the purse strings. The ONLY reason that Merced is sucking up vast sums of money is bcos the boys and girls in Sacramento FORCED the Regents to open a another campus in the Central Valley. UC had no interest not intention to do so. Thus, as long as Cal is a public institution, it will be beholden to the Legislators who have little interest in that campus itself.</p>
<p>Hahaha, Berkeley catering primarily to premed students. Somehow I think the home of one the world’s largest and most prestigious departments of Electrical Engineering might have a problem with that. Oh, don’t forget Gordon Moore, or Steve Chu, or Wozniak, Robert Laughlin…</p>