Last year, I wrote about the UC/CSU system-wide budget crisis and the trend toward privatization; this year’s update is more focused on elitism that is becoming our state public system.  I recently attended a college admissions industry update on the state of the California schools and walked away with a number of points to ponder when making a decision on whether to apply and matriculate to a California state school.  

What is the outlook for 2011? 

1.     The UC’s have capacity to increase admission, but will be decreasing admissions to meet budget restrictions.

2.     The guarantee of an UC admission to the top 12.5% will be decreased to approximately the top 9%

3.     An estimated 20,0000 to 30,000 qualified students will be denied acceptance to a UC.

4.     More use of waitlists. In order to better optimize enrollment, it can be anticipated that more UC’s will go to wait lists.  However, UCLA has already stated it will not use waitlists and it is unlikely that Berkeley or UC San Diego will either.

5.     Tuition increases of 8% to 20%.  One proposal under consideration is annual increases of 8% - 10%.

6.     Additional acceptance offers to out of state students.  It is possible for enrollment to increase to 20% or above.

7.     Majors, minors, and classes to be cut.  As of now, specific items have not been identified but it is possible that entire programs will be cut.

Is this all? Not by any means, at recent budget meetings the regents made some extremely disturbing comments that indicate additional impacts on the UCs  are still to come:

"All bets are off. No longer can we say the Master Plan even exists," said regent Sherry Lansing, in reference to California's 50-year-old blueprint for ensuring that all Californians had access to higher education. "We have a core value system we have to protect. I'm asking every one of us to be really entrepreneurial." (UC Newsroom)

“The moment is fast approaching when the university will no longer be able to guarantee admission to all California applicants who meet the eligibility criteria,” the central tenet of the state’s 50-year-old Master Plan for Higher Education, Yudof said.

What does this mean to the class of 2012 and beyond?

1.     Capacity and legally mandated matching funds for in-state students.  The state of California is cutting the per student contribution from $7,930 to $7,210.  But even worse, as a budget-cutting device, they are cutting the number of students that they are matching resulting in fewer acceptances by in-state students.

2.     More competition for fewer slots. Since there are fewer acceptances, and for the most part, in spite of the newly identified “holistic reviews”, UC’s are by the numbers.  Those with higher-class ranks, GPA’s, test scores and AP’s are more likely to be accepted.

3.     As high schools are not all created equal, California introduced use of Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC) in an attempt to level the playing field.  Therefore, students at highly competitive high schools who have excellent statistics, but are not in the top 9% may lose out to students with lower credentials at less competitive schools who are in the top 9% of their schools. In the past, this was not a gating factor for high performing students, but with the current budget crisis, those students should expect denials at UC’s.

4.     More out of state students accepted as revenue generators.  However, this may not be the solution the Regents are looking for, as anecdotally out of state students are questioning the quality and cost of the UC experience on discussion boards like College Confidential and College Prowler.

5.     Longer time to graduation with fewer major choices.  This will be addressed in more detail in a subsequent post.

6.     Total higher costs for students within the California system.  Calculate with an 8% annual estimated cost for a minimum 4.5 years to compare with costs of out of state public or private schools.

California students should look at alternatives to the UC system for competitive, high quality education that can be completed in 4 years.

Do you think it’s fair that out of state students are being offered admittances based on their ability to pay over $50,000?  If you were an academically qualified, in-state student who was offered the chance to attend a UC but pay out-of-state prices, would you? Let me hear from you.