citrusbelt

Accepting grad students from OOS is in California's best interests. They tend to stay. But, for undergrad the Cal States and UC's should be primarily for CA residents. If some OOS student wants to pay the price of a private school to go to a public university, let them, but it is silly to do that.

bluebayou

perhaps sakky needs to return to SAT vocab prep. There is no "paradox" between undergrad and grad admissions -- it is simply public policy.

Cali Trumpet

Why do the UCs favor Californian students?

^^ What kind of a question is that? Did you forget that the University of Nevada is primarily full of students from Nevada or the University of Arizona is primarily full of students from Arizona? Wouldn't you expect the same from the UC's?

Each state pays tax dollars towards their college system and that is a perfectly good reason for colleges to give priority to instate students.

sakky

Do they really? I'm not so sure - or at least, I'm not so sure that the grad students are more likely to stay in California than the undergrads would.

I'll give you one case in point. A lot of the newly minted PhD's coming out of Berkeley and UCLA are looking to enter academia, hence, trying to place in assistant professorships. Yet the fact is, there actually really aren't that many total colleges and universities in the state of California. You are far more likely to get an academic position, say, in the Northeast where there are just lots and lots of colleges. {For example, I know a guy who came from OOS to get his PhD in philosophy at Berkeley, and upon graduation immediately left California to take a tenure-track position at Syracuse University. What exactly did the California taxpayers get in return for subsidizing his program?}

This line of logic would lead one to say that those OOS PhD students should actually pay full-price, but then get a rebate if they decide to stay in the state afterwards. But as it stands now, that doesn't happen: those OOS students are free to take their subsidized PhD's and immediately leave the state.

Perhaps bluebayou needs to retake a class on simple logic. Of course it is simply "public policy". What I am asking is why is public policy set up that way. Specifically, why should public policy favor undergrad state residents but not grad state residents. The funding argument does not fly because taxpayers fund both. That's the paradox.

bluebayou

^^Write your legislator. [You are literally the first person I have ever met that actually cares about this issue.]

imaparasite

Not only is it the UC system's obligation to educate CA residents, it is the reason why any public school is created.

sakky

Oh, believe me, a lot of people care about this issue. Even here on CC, there are (or at least there were) people who wondered why UC was spending so much money on OOS grad students who would then leave the state upon graduation.

Besides, writing to current legislators isn't going to do anything, as this particular public policy was set many years ago. It would be like asking the current President exactly why the Constitution was written the way that it was. He's not going to know. After all, it wasn't his job to write it.

I said it before, and I'll say it again, Berkeley seems to have absolutely no reluctance to educating plenty of OOS graduate students.

I am simply making the point that nobody seems to have a logically consistent answer as to why public schools are so obligated to serve its own state residents for undergrad, but not for grad.

tsdad

Most of the graduate students in sciences, and related fields, are paid for by the Federal government, private companies, or university foundations. They also help to keep costs down for the taxpayer by serving as research assistants for professors who pay for them out of their grants, not allocated state taxpayer monies. The exception would be mostly in the agriculture area where graduate research provides direct benefits to the state. Graduate students are cheap labor, very cheap labor, for the university serving as graders or teaching assistants at minimal wages. Graduate students are the university's cannon fodder. Some graduate programs, like law schools, actually turn a profit.

Without its graduate programs UCB would be a CSU.

tsdad

And btw, many OOS students do pay full price, especially those just going for a masters, (a big money maker for a university), and those in the humanities/social sciences/teaching areas. Other OOS students receive in-state tuition for performing services that would otherwise require a full time individual at a much higher salary and benefits.

A major research university could not exist without its graduate students.

middsmith

Why is it so hard to understand? Because Berkeley graduate is very small compare to the undergraduate. They can only afford to take a small number of students and they need to pick the best. Besides, the funding for graduate students come from NSF, etc... which has no mandate on enrolling Californians.