The UC system made a number of announcements recently about enrollment management that continue to point toward a disturbing  California public university system migration to privatization:  

1. System-wide waiting lists for the first time ever with as many as 1,000 students listed (1.35% of admitted students).  Each campus would maintain its own list and not all campuses may participate.  Conversely, a student may be on more than 1 school list.
2. Actual cutbacks may be less than the 2,300 freshman (on top of 2009's 2,300 - approximately 6% of total enrollment) previously announced depending on actual state of final budget allocations.

Last year UC's admitted approximately 74,000 freshman and 34,000 of those enrolled.  Waitlists, in spite of adding to an individual student's stress, actually provides for  last minute adjustments to respond to actual budget cuts (after all acceptances are sent out before budgets are set for the following year) and allows  UC's to fill seats as melt occurs after May 1st.  Melt can be attributed to ability to pay, being accepted off of other waitlists or change in priorities/family issues.

While these in and of themselves are significant there are some additional proposals that may eventually have even more impact on California's college bound students:

1. Plans to admit more out of state students.  Traditionally, out of state students pay full, higher rate tuition.  While that gets money into the system, it may restrict the number of California students admitted to the UC system.
2. Plans (shelved in 2009) to charge specific majors a premium.  This particular proposal was aimed at undergraduate business and engineering students, but may return in the future with other majors.
3. In 2007, state Treasurer Bill Lockyer suggested abandoning the entire UC system, as a way to eventually save California as  much as an estimated $7 billion a year.  While this was met with derision and dismissal, it is obvious that even senior officials are giving it serious consideration.
4. In 2008, UC Berkeley's proposed  flexible pricing models for UCs; specifically higher tuition for UCB. It has been oft discussed to have higher pricing for the UC flagships - UCLA and UCB; in line with elite private institutions.
5. Private funding of UCs has increased significantly at the same time public funds are decreasing, upping the percentage of privatization of schools organically.  For example in 2007, UCB signed a deal with BP for $500 million and private funding now accounts for approximately 15.8% of the UCB budget

 So should we be concerned about the privatization?  Yes, indeed, I believe in the long term this will continue to surface as an option to "solve" UCs and the State of California's budget crisises.  But more importantly, in the short term, I believe we need to remain focused on developments and lobbying to keep access open for California students in both admissions and cost to attend.

Links to source articles can be found here, here, here, here,  and here,