UC admission rates for CA residents drastically declined

The reason we created our state's university system was to provide advanced educational opportunities for our state's students at a reasonable price.

Unfortunately, that reason has now changed. Our state's university system is now there to provide well paying jobs for its employees. Their preference for higher tuitions from out-of-state students is all the proof you need.

Welcome to California.

Well, the UC budget was cut by $1 billion during the recession, and never recovered. And Brown wants them to cut more. Our population has grown, CA is expensive for every industry. The math just doesn't work.

Then correct the problem.

But to sacrifice our state's children for higher tuitions from out-of-state students is unconscionable. We aren't paying taxes to the UC system so we can preferentially educate children from other states and countries.

And that the above post comes from a Professor only reinforces my original point. The UC system current motivation is to preserve jobs for employees and staff... not to educate our state's graduating high school students.

Wouldn't the fact that applications are up mean the percentage of applicants admitted would automatically go down? Am I missing something?
UC has to pay their professors somehow; if the state won't give more money, which we have plenty of right now, then they need the out-of-state tuition to pay. It cost pretty much exactly twice as much for me to send a child to a UC as to send another to a CSU.

Higher education and Health care are treated as big profit-centers in the US, whereas the rest of the Western world see them as a public service paid for by the State. At what point will the UC system just become the University of Phoenix with nicer landscaping and buildings?

It is universal. All other states are increasing out-of-state students. For example, Washington State now enrolls 33% of its students from out-of-state. The difference is that the UC system has 10 schools. Washington has only one flagship university. If you get crowded out of the one school, its either go out-of-state, or go to a lesser school in-state.

There is a story about a joke between two admissions officers from different states: "We can solve each others financial problems if you will enroll all of my students and I will enroll all of your students."

Perhaps a little compassion for the out-of-state students is warranted. Many of those California students who didn't get into the UC are taking the spot of some kid in someone else's state. You can't fix the problem unless all the schools in all the states stop playing the out-of-state tuition game.

Mark - I agree, we should stop playing this game. It is absurd and unfair.

If the issue is funding, then our elected officials should correct it. But you don't correct it by abandoning the rationale of having an educational system that is supported by tax payers to primarily serve in-state students.

If there is room for out-of-state students, fine. But qualified in-state students should always have preference and never be turned away just to extract more money from an out-of-stater. Absurd.

Admission rates have declined by more than the increase in applications due to the shift to out of state and country applicants. Gpa requirements are higher too.

Yet another broken system.

Pressure Gov. Brown to support higher education through funding increases and adjust the UC charter.

This is a crisis.

I agree with POGO et al: fix the problem.

Taxpayer money supports the ever increasing needs/demands of our schools, including the universities, with the understanding that they are and will be resources for our communities in genera,l and for our children, in particular. But something is seriously wrong when the qualifying children of taxpayers can not get the requisite educational opportunities because our schools have mismanaged balancing funding sources versus demands.

Additionally, why should we, as a community, almost demand from our children within these communities to have near-perfect GPA's and stellar SAT scores in order to simply have the possibility of gaining access to these same taxpayer supported resources?

The value to our society of offering academic, vocational and technical education and training opportunities for all of our children as a means of improving themselves and their lives, as well as all of the lives of their children, is inestimable.

When I attended UCB, I was surprised by the number of overseas students but figured they at least helped financially support Cal. The situation with out of state, out of country students has gone beyond diversity. I expect that in-state students be given priority, but that is not the case. When I read that Jerry Brown is more focused on providing and funding K-12 education for immigrants--path way to citizenship-- than on financing the UC system, I find myself quite resentful. I'm paying state taxes 'through the nose' and yet my children will not receive the benefit of an affordable UC education because the 'path way to citizenship' students' education is given tax priority. Meanwhile, California kids are shafted. Grr! I might as well vote Republican.

[Post removed. Please post comments without insulting other posters.]

"Our state's university system is now there to provide well-paying jobs for its employees."

One problem not often mentioned is the large increase in administrative positions at UC, vis-a-vis actual teaching positions. There was a time when colleges employed significantly larger numbers of professors than they do administrative staff, but not anymore. The ranks of administrators at UC grew 4.2% between April 2009 and April 2011, which was not exactly a boom time in California. It has become a classic case of too many chiefs, not enough Indians. Bear in mind that even a starting UC manager gets paid more than a veteran part-time instructor, and there are a lot of those non-tenure-track instructors at UC.

On a related note, I understand it's not that hard to game the resident requirement. A student need only be a resident of California for a year to qualify. I know of a few cases in which applicants from out of state established mailing addresses at the homes of in-state relatives and were later admitted as resident students.

We have a pair of HS kids going through college selection process right now. At a UC San Diego tour, a month ago, we were told that "there are no admissions into the engineering school for incoming freshmen. The school is "sold out" with transfers from the JC system. Even if your child is accepted at UC SD, the engr school has not accepted more than 5 kids in a year into upper division engineering school. Engineering school is "sold out"." I agree, there's a serious problem with the UC system that needs to be fixed. Analogous to the Calif water system, which also needs to be "fixed", specifically dams/capacity added. Population has increased 91% since 1972; only UC Merced has been added. No new dams/water storage has been built since then either. Quick round #s: UC system has some 238k students. UC Merced has some 5.9k students, about 2.5%. This against a backdrop of a population increase of 91%. Plus the demand for a college education has increased since 1972, so more families/kid seek college education. We, as adults, have let down this next generation of kids.

Excellent points, Ethan and the reason I used the word "employees" and not "teachers."

The percentage of administrators in the UC system has skyrocketed over the past two decades to the point of absolute absurdity. And their pay scale is off the charts.

Yes, the UC system now exists primarily for them, not for our students.

Some perspective:
In 1990 California contributed $16,700 per student in the UC system.
By 2011 California contributed only $6,700/student, a decline of 60%.
With state funding at it's lowest level in 3 decades, is it any wonder the UC system has had to look elsewhere to meet its budget, including allowing more out-of-state students who pay full freight?
If residents of California want to see more of their students admitted to UC, then they need to push their representatives to increase state funding of the UC system, perhaps to levels of a generation ago. And yes, this may require an increase in taxes to accomplish.
And if you want to blame this on greedy professors & staff at the UCs, consider: "The nonpartisan think tank, Public Policy Institute of California, concluded that faculty salaries and benefits for both the UC and California State University systems have not increased significantly over the past 20 years. Recent tuition increases have been driven by dramatic reductions in state subsidies to UC and CSU". Web Link

To counter POGO's assertion that the pay scale for UC staff is off the charts, the above reports looked at faculty salaries and concluded that:
"Since 2007, faculty salaries have plateaued at UC and declined at CSU. Not only have faculty salaries plateaued or declined within faculty ranks, but UC and CSU are increasingly relying on untenured, non–tenure track, and part-time faculty to provide instruction [which, in turn, has] raised concerns about instructional quality and reductions in research."
In short, you get what you pay for.

That same report that Steve referenced also showed that "administration expenditures" represented - by far - the single largest increase for any expense category.

From 2011 to 2012, the most recent year examined in the report, administrative expenses went up a whopping $506 PER STUDENT for that year alone. (see Figure 6)

It's true, we're just not paying enough taxes in California!

Squirrel! Squirrel!
POGO picks out a single $500 increase in 2012 and ignores the previous $700 decline over the previous six years - yes, Admin costs in 2012 were still $200 less than in 2006. Imagine that!
He also ignores that the increase was intended to reduce the unfunded liability in staff retirement costs, something I believe POGO has supported in other forums. However, rather than provide us that useful bit of information, he'd rather stoke our outrage by letting us imagine all the frivolous things Administrators do with our tax dollars. Damn bureaucrats!
But let's not lose sight of the forest for this particularly scrawny tree. The conclusion of this report is not that Administrative increases are driving tuition through the roof. Instead, it found "the cost of providing public higher education in California has not risen dramatically. Instead, the tuition increases over the past several years have merely shifted the cost from the state to students and their families." In other words, it's the loss of $10,000 per student in state support that's the problem that needs to be addressed. Let's stay focused on the real problem and not get lost in the noise.

As if you didn't cherry-pick your statistics either.

If people think that their tax dollars are being spent wisely and that the UC is efficiently educating California's children, then they have nothing to worry about.

Unfortunately, in California we're already well past the tipping point and we can only expect more taxes and fewer services. Get used to it.

Thanks Steve - some key excerpts from the independent think tank analysis:

Between 2007–08 and 2012–13, state appropriations to UC and CSU fell by $2.0 billion (from $6.3 billion to $4.3 billion in 2013–14 dollars) or more than 30 percent, even as enrollment increased. On a per-student (full-time equivalent, or FTE) basis and adjusted for inflation, the declines have been even more dramatic. General Fund subsidies per student fell by more than 50 percent at UC and CSU. Inflation adjusted per student General Fund revenues fell from more than $16,000 in 2007–08 to about $10,000 in 2011–12 at UC and from almost $9,000 to less than $6,000 at CSU during the same period (Figure 1).5

Basically, the state has shifted most of the cost to students. Each expense area they looked at has had only small increases over the last 5 years.

You get what you pay for. CA can't educate even the same number of students on $2.0 billion less than they used to get.

Write to your elected officials. Better yet, vote them out, and vote in people that prioritize education.

HS Mom -

"Better yet, vote them out..."

Reminder: You live in California where except for 18 months in the mid-1990's, our legislature has been controlled by one political party for almost fifty years (since 1970, to be precise).

Vote them out? Your law makers are more entrenched than ever.