On face value, it seems a lot of Cal States would be way better bang for the buck-smaller class sizes, less money, and at several schools (SLO and CPP), more hands on. I understand plenty of companies recruit out of Cal States.
So why are kids so gaga over UCs vs. lackluster enthusiasm for Cal States (except for SLO)?
Because most kids don’t look at colleges in the “bang for their buck” way. They look at rankings and prestige. It’s hard for the Cal States to compete – reputation-wise – with the UCs as a whole, considering how many Nobel Prizes the system has and how many of the UCs conduct world-class research. Also, quite a few of the Cal States are commuter schools, or have that vibe. It’s up to the parents to teach kids about things such as class size, access to faculty, and the worth of a particular degree (i.e., bang for your buck.)
The Cal States are also much more of a commuter school, with perhaps the exception of SLO and maybe SDSU. Thus, the campus environment can be much different than that of a UC, particularly on weekends. Grad/professional schools prefer to see the University moniker. (Think of someone with a 3.6 from UCLA vs. a 3.6 from Cal State LA, all other things being equal.)
I would check class sizes carefully before making conclusions. They may not be all that different, especially in popular disciplines. I TAed for a professor from a CSU earlier this year, and he said teaching at UCLA was comparatively a breeze – he had hundreds of students at his CSU as well but no TAs to help out. To say that he was overwhelmed is a drastic understatement.
for example, checking the CDS of two schools:
UCI - 80% of Frosh live on campus
CSUF - 38% (less than half)
Class size - % of classes more than 40* (per warbler’s point):
CSUF – 22%
UCI - 25%
Plus, I’d question the class type. The Cal States offer a LOT of remedial education, and I would guess that the remedial classes are a higher % of the smaller classes (out of necessity).
Cal States were originally established to educate students for the direct entry into the workforce (more hands-on) so to speak. UC’s have always been researched based, so students wanting to work in research or continue on for Grad school/Professional schools would go to a UC. The lines are blurred more, since many Cal states offer research and Grad school opportunities. There are many companies that recruit from the Cal States specifically. My husband works for a heavy civil company that actually prefers SLO/CPP engineering grads to some of the UC grads since they are able to do the job straight out of college (practical vs. theory).
The most residential CSUs are CPSLO, CMA, SSU, CSUMB, HSU, all with over 80% of frosh living in the dorms. SDSU is probably next with 72% of frosh living in the dorms. CSUCI, CSUC, SJSU, SFSU, CPP range between 47% and 62% of frosh living in the dorms. The others tend to have mainly commuter students.
Perhaps a better comparison would be between CSUs and UCs of similar selectivity. CPSLO vs. UCI? SDSU vs. UCR? CPP vs. UCM?
However, CSUs tend to be significantly less selective than UCs. Since school prestige tends to be strongly associated with admission selectivity, it would not be surprising that, where it matters, most CSUs tend not to have much school prestige compared to UCs.
SDSU, SLO and CSULB all admit around 30-35%, historically. UCSD is about the same, historically, with UCI and UCSB more recently falling close to that range, with UCD not far behind. So it’s not the admit rate, then, so much as the other factors mentioned-commuter school feel, research opportunities, amount of remedial vs challenging academic courses, and plain old prestige factor.
I used frosh class stats (HS GPA and test scores) to find similar levels of selectivity. Even though admit rates may be similar, CPSLO, UCI > SDSU, UCR > CPP, UCM in actual admissions selectivity. Admit rates do not really tell selectivity, since http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/lowest-acceptance-rate/page+3 lists some not-very-selective schools with low admit rates because they get lots of academically weak applicants.
I also think it’s much harder to graduate in 4 years from a CSU because of impaction and not being able to get the classes needed to graduate. That’s a broad generalization that may only be true on some campuses, not the whole CSU system.
Several CSUs (CPP, CSUFresno, CSUSB, CSUB, CSUStanislaus) have four year graduation pledges (where students can get priority registration for needed courses, or free tuition for any additional semesters needed). However, students cannot need remedial courses, must take full course loads following their majors’ course plans, cannot fail courses, and cannot change majors. It is likely that most students are unable or unwilling to meet these requirements – the relatively low selectivity of most CSUs means that many students do need remedial courses or are unable to handle or pass full course loads.
CPSLO does have a lower four year graduation rate than other schools of similar selectivity (47%, versus 68% at UCI). I have not seen a good explanation as to whether it is something that is the school’s fault (meaning not enough space in required courses), student factors (needing remedial courses, changing majors, not taking full course loads, not wanting to take the required course at 8am), or innocuous reasons (co-op jobs). CPSLO’s graduation rates are rising, though (perhaps in part due to higher admission selectivity and higher costs creating incentive to graduate quickly): http://content-calpoly-edu.s3.amazonaws.com/ir/1/publications_reports/ret_grad/persist-ftf-1314.pdf
After visiting both schools, my oldest picked CPP over UCD because of the more hands on teaching style and location and she is on a 4 year pledge where she is supposed to get all her required classes for a timely graduation. Also her major wasn’t one that needed a research lab and the CPP tour talked more about job placement where she felt we didn’t hear much of that during the tour from UCD. CPP is far enough she can stay on campus, but close enough a flight isn’t needed. She does say the campus is pretty much dead on the weekends, dorms are “gross and old” and feels most of her classmates commute so they run off right after class. There’s a small community that do stay on campus she hangs out with.
I think these many of the CSU and UC schools are high quality schools, and the individual student should visit to see if it’s a fit. When my daughter applied, she had no clue what “poly technical” style of teaching was, she just figured it would be one of her picks. She truly is satisfied with her choice. (And the final cost!)
I would agree that in general the CSUs are much better than the UCs. There are a handful of gems among the UCs but in general the Cal States offer superior educational outcomes and at comparable costs.
Good thoughts, all.
I have a friend who really thought her son “deserved” to go to a UC because he’s a solid student (28 ACT, 3.8/4.0 GPA). He’s gotten into UCR and waitlisted at UCI, but not other UC options. He’s in at CPP, Fullerton, and the local school, SDSU. He wasn’t thrilled with going to a Cal State. They are also full pay.
I really encouraged her to look at CPP (son is undeclared engineering) for all the reasons you mentioned.
@ucbalumnus,
where did you find the percentage of frosh who live in dorms at the CSUs? I’d like to look some of them up.
Thanks for your help as always!!
On http://www.collegedata.com , you can look up a given college, then look in the “campus life” tab.
Or you can look in the college’s common data set, section F1.
Many professional degrees such as law, medicine, pharmacy, veterinary, dentistry, etc. are exclusively offered at UC’s and a student could start at a state school and study animal biology, but they would have be admitted into the program at Davis to become a vet.
And as noted above, the UC’s are research oriented. My husband teaches at Cal Poly, and they have an excellent physics program that would prepare a student for teaching high school physics or lab work. However, if a student wanted to get a doctorate in Physics and do research, it would be a mistake to go to Poly as a Bachelors degree in Physics from there would not help you get into the top graduate programs. Some programs are comparable to a UC, however, my husband got an electrical engineering degree from Cal Poly and went to Berkeley for his doctorate, his cousin got an Aerospace engineering degree from Cal Poly and went for his doctorate at Stanford.
@ucbalumnus,
I have a question which might come off snootily, and if so, I apologize. DS is really interested in SJSU for animation, (and it is highly ranked for animation) because it’s artistic rigor seems to be similar to arts colleges. Actually, I should rephrase to say that I am interested in SJSU for DS.
DS is smart, ADHD inattentive, EF difficulties. He attends an elite private HS that does not grade inflate, ranks in the bottom 1/2 of class, 3.22 UW GPA 3.70 UC GPA, ACT 35, SAT2 760, 710, 6 APs.
He is currently semimortified about the thought of going to a CSU because no one from his HS goes to CSU; they usually go to private colleges. We are getting lots of discouragement and pressure to not attend a CSU by his HS GC. This pressure is hard to fight back against.
Back to SJSU, what can he expect from the rigor of the General Ed types of classes. DS is the type that will carefully gauge the minimum amount of work needed, or will always attempt to go over the lowest hurdle. I’m concerned about what dynamic and grades will ensue if the rigor of non-arts classes is low. Do you have any idea of the rigor of the classes at SJSU such as GE classes or maybe business classes, not engineering or CS.
SJSU, like all CSUs, has fairly extensive GE requirements: http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/narr/static/schedules/general.html
However, I am not aware of the general level of rigor, though (like most schools, including most more selective schools) it is likely that there are high and low rigor options in most or all of the categories (e.g. physics for physics majors versus physics for poets – compare the “intensive science and math” lists to the other lists of science and math GE course lists).
You can get an idea of what SJSU’s admission thresholds for different majors have been at http://info.sjsu.edu/static/admission/impaction.html .