So to summarize the griping, there is a confluence of wants that cannot all be satisfied together:
A. Student wants to attend a “prestigious” (i.e. more selective) UC, but is angry that those are so selective that they do not admit him/her.
B. Student thinks that the less “prestigious” (i.e. less selective, more likely to admit) UCs or their students are “beneath” him/her.
C. People want the UCs to use their full capacity to enroll students, but are unenthusiastic about personally making use of that increased capacity at UCR or UCM.
D. But when the UCs use their full capacity, they have issues like oversubscribed impacted majors, making it more competitive to get into those majors, more difficult to change majors, and more difficult for students in other majors to take those courses as out-of-major electives.
E. Then they want out-of-state enrollment reduced, so that more capacity can be used for in-state enrollment.
F. But then they do not want to pay more tuition to make up for the loss of out-of-state revenue.
G. And then they keep griping about taxes that are used to subsidize in-state students.
H. And have clearly stated at the ballot box that the spending priorities for the taxes that are collected are K-12, community colleges, and prisons.
I. Many say that the UCs (and other universities) can and should cut costs. The UCs are already an economy-class experience (e.g. big classes, at least in popular majors) compared to some other universities, but it is likely that many of those suggesting cost-cutting may not want to go even more economy-class like at universities in Canada and Europe.
J. Never mind the race-based griping about Asian tiger kids outcompeting their kids, or the supposedly unfair racial preferences (that do not exist) for URMs.