<p>It all gets back to the basic point: Cal is not confined to running all of its programs in the city of Berkeley forever. Hence, pressure from the city by itself won’t necessarily constrain the growth of Cal. I’m surprised you keep contesting this very simple point.</p>
<p>But I don’t believe it can or would do that. That is my point and I’ve provided much evidence to prove Berkeley couldn’t and wouldn’t do that.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that Cal has more undergrads now than it had 15 years ago. 15 years ago, L&S was unimpacted. Yet now, L&S is cramming even more students into the school, despite the impaction. Interesting, isn’t it?</p>
<p>Yet you forget to see how small of an actual increase that is in UG despite applications going up 50% the past seven years alone. Cal has increased UG by less than ten percent even though demand for Cal has gone up probably almost 100% since the early 90s! With this final increase its reached maximum capacity. Cal probably saw it could increase somewhat and did. It’s caused some major to be impacted but that is more of a function of demand, Cal can’t appease every student until it gets the resources to do so. When it gets an endowment it can expand faculty faster. Also if you look at the 2020 plan Cal will be increasing faculty by 200 I believe.</p>
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<p>And that doesn’t mean that it isn’t reaching a limit.</p>
<p>It’s not my job to teach you basic accounting. But, simply put, the final transaction is going to be exactly the same to Cal no matter whether your roommates live on campus or off. For example, let’s just make up some numbers. Let’s say that your roommates are getting $10k in financial aid for their housing. If they live on campus, then Cal will simply subtract that $10k from their housing bill (hence leaving them to pay the remainder). If they live on campus, then Cal just gives them the $10k in cash, and it is up to them to pay their landlords. </p>
<p>Either way you put it, Cal is subsidizing these students no matter where they live. Yet what I’m trying to tell you is why would Cal spend millions on buying land or apartments when they can’t recoop the costs because they will be subsidizing a large portion of the students that live there. The landowners in Berkeley who you use as an example buy the property but are able to recoop the costs because they aren’t subsidizing the students that are living there…I don’t understand your logic…or maybe logic isn’t necessary as long as you know “basic accounting”.</p>
<p>How’s that? We are simply carefully defining what ownership really means, which means the rights to the residual claims.</p>
<p>First you say you need legal title, then you say ownership is only if you can sell the land and beneift personally, then you say UC Regents are only trustees… I’ve shown that UC has legal title, can sell UC property and is structured, like Stanford, as a trust full corporate powers. Your definition of ownership changes with every new post.</p>
<p>As to your other points, sure, maybe those private owners are merely speculators who are now getting screwed. But so what? At the end of the day, these are private organizations with far fewer resources than Cal has, and yet they are able to somehow come up with the money to purchase these properties, and Cal can’t? How’s that? That’s like Steve Jobs complaining that he can’t afford a new car when I can afford a new car. </p>
<p>Besides, let me turn the situation around. Why didn’t Cal buy a bunch of land during the real-estate trough, say during the California real estate bust of the early 90’s? And in fact, since you’re talking about foreclosures and a coming housing bust now, why doesn’t Cal take advantage of that by preparing to purchase a bunch of property on the cheap? If the housing bust is going to hit the Bay Area hard such that all these private property ‘speculators’ are going to be smashed, then it would make sense for Cal to take full advantage by scooping up all of their properties for pennies on the dollar, right? Then when the housing market inevitably recovers, Cal can sell those properties right back to the market and earn billions in profits, right? Li Ka-Shing, the richest man in Asia, made his fortune by purchasing much of the Hong Kong waterfront during a nasty economic downturn when properties were dirt cheap. </p>
<p>You keep pointing to the high prices of property in the Bay Area. But that by itself means nothing to a large financial entity like Cal. After all, sure, it costs a lot to purchase property in the Bay Area. But when you sell, you get a lot back. Hence, the only problem is coming up with the initial funds to purchase the property in the first place, but that’s not a problem for a large entity like Cal. Cal has billions of dollars in endowment and can obviously tap billions more in credit (just like how companies routinely tap the debt markets to cover their investment needs and similarly the state and Federal government routinely utilizes debt as a matter of course). Hence, if Cal actually wanted to become the dominant residential property owner in the city of Berkeley, it could surely do so. Of course it doesn’t want to do so (nor do I think it should), but that’s a matter of choice. It could do it. After all, I doubt that there is a single property developer/owner in the city of Berkeley that has anywhere near the financial resources that Cal wields.</p>
<p>What really matters to a large entity like Cal is not the initial property prices but rather the price volatility. But the simple fact that Cal’s main campus is located in Berkeley mitigates much of that volatility for the simple fact that many students and faculty simply want to live close to campus. Hence, you will always have a steady clientele. Contrast that with what is happening in truly cratered real estate markets like, say, North Las Vegas or Miami Beach. The truth is, few people really need to live there (i.e. most people in N Las Vegas can easily live somewhere else in Clark County). Hence, that market has no natural ‘real estate price brake’ the way that the city of Berkeley does.</p>
<p>Clearly if Berkeley was as eager to expand as you suggest they would have done some of the things you suggested, but they haven’t which point to the fact that the administration isn’t coming up with schemes to expand. Plus you say that Berkeley will always have clientele, but that clientele will be primarily students. A large majority of those students are receiving financial aid so no matter how the transaction is carried out, Cal will be basically paying for these students to live on the property. How will it recoop the costs and the extra utilities? Bay area prices, even if they go down, will be very expensive, and the highest in the nation. I think Berkeley will be spending revenues from its endowment first or foremost to preserve academic qulaity and will not use it to buy up the city of Berkeley, which seems improbable, especially with the Berzerkeley City Council on watch. You act as though Berkeley has the resources of Harvard, but either way the university isn’t going to risk its credit trying to buy up land if its not economically smart.</p>
<p>For one, UC Berkeley has plans to expand westward. UCB has already purchased the land where the former Department of Health Services building (that giant building on the west side bordering Hearst ave), and is waiting for the funding to transform it into an anchor for a new Community Health Campus. Unfortunately, there isn’t the budget now to demolish and build the campus yet.</p>
<p>Yea I’ve mentioned that before that’s really the only location adjacent to Berkeley where the school can expand. Its actually a perfect location for a building a health campus because its going to be right across the street from the biological sciences and the new Li Kai Shing Center. Either way I don’t think that expansion will have any affect on Berkeley’s undergrad capacity, but hopefully since there is alot of land there they can add some UG facilities.
Also are you sure UCB purchased the land, they might have, but from the sign I was under the impression the state just transferred the property to Berkeley…although I could be wrong.</p>
<p>disagree with sakky re: Cal’s incentives to grow. IMO, until Merced stops begging for students, there will be little interest within the UC system to increase Cal nor UCLA.</p>
<p>Need: yes, the UCs are NOT a good value for OOS kids (about which I’ve posted often). For the money, a private school offers an excellent education without the state bureacracy.</p>
<p>I’d say OOS USED to be a relatively good value… ~7-10years ago (it would have costed what in-states pay now). But I agree, near private tuition rates with little scholarship/financial aid assistance is tough…</p>
<p>but then again a lot of folks would love to stay in California… I’ve met quite a few OOS who says they don’t plan on going back home (making California their new home)!</p>
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<p>Berkeley now owns some 6,500 acres (according to the campus facts in brief from UC), and it probably will expand. However, that doesn’t mean that it will expand enrollment – rather, its facilities, buildings, etc.</p>
<p>^ I agree the campus will expand its facilities…but how much of that 6500 is not preserve and the UC arboretum?</p>
<p>the main campus itself is 200 acres; the UCB owns practically the whole hill region up and behind LBNL (where they keep the hyena colony which i visited!)</p>
<p>They have a hyena colony!..I’m gonna have to check it out. Last summer I was walking up to check out the the pool behind the stadium and saw a sign warning me that they found a deer carcass on the road with evidence of mountain lion teeth marks! It made me somewhat nervous because at the time I was up there it was actually pretty desolate. It was after junior year and I was at Berkeley for a summer program and thought to myself that’d be great I go to Berkeley for the summer and end up being eaten by a mountain lion. UCB does own alot of land up in the hills but can they actually build on it? I believe most of the land is preserve.</p>
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<p>Come on now, are you really going to use *past actions * to forecast future events? Seriously? </p>
<p>Let me put it to you this way. 15 years ago, there were no impacted majors in L&S, and I am not aware of any schemes back in those days to implement any impaction. Hence since there were no prior plans, I suppose I should expect to find no impacted L&S majors today, right? Oops. </p>
<p>One might argue that L&S is responsible for the implementation of impaction, not the administration per se. But that’s the point. Whatever the administration plans or doesn’t plan is not highly correlated with what will actually happen. The administration didn’t plan to institute L&S impaction - but it happened anyway. The upshot is that the past actions and intentions of the administration are a poor gauge of what will actually happen in the future. </p>
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<p>I have explained this several times: Cal is going to pay these financial aid costs whether those students live in campus-owned housing or not. After all think about it: do you “lose” financial aid if you choose to live off-campus? No, you do not. You are going to get financial aid whether you live in a dorm or not. Hence, whether those students live in dorms or off-campus is a net neutral financial transaction to Berkeley. </p>
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<p>Uh, really? Like I said, it wasn’t that long ago when L&S didn’t have any impacted majors. How about now? I see no evidence to indicate that Cal has opened its checkbook to eliminate all impaction. {I hope you’re not going to attempt to argue that impaction has no effect on program quality. After all, what is the point of having great majors if students can’t declare them?} </p>
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<p>I don’t really see what the problem is. All that real-estate is privately owned anyway. People are already living there. They’re just doing so as private tenants. From the point of view of the city, what’s the difference between a student living in the city in campus-owned housing and a student living in the city in private housing? Either way, that student is going to be drawing from city resources. </p>
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<p>Uh, and you seem to assume that purchasing land is not economically smart. You said it yourself: we are now going through a housing bust. But isn’t a bust precisely the time one should buy? </p>
<p>Besides, let me put it to you this way. Cal lost a significant amount of endowment funds during the recession of the early 2000’s due to investments in venture capital and technology equities that went sour. To be fair, many other schools lost a fair bit of money during that recession as well, so it wasn’t just a Cal problem. Yet that just begs the question of why is it “OK” for Cal to risk endowment funds on tech investments but not “OK” for Cal for risk endowment funds on real estate? Similarly, right now, Cal’s endowment is invested in a portfolio, some components of which (i.e. banking stocks, ABS, REIT’s) are surely losing money. Again, what’s the difference between risking money via portfolio and risking money via direct real estate investments? </p>
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<p>Uh, the question is not whether there is interested within the UC system per se. The question is whether there is interest by the California voters. Like I said before, parents don’t want to send their kid to just any UC. They want to send their kid specifically to Cal. </p>
<p>Besides, I’ll put it to you this way. You say that Merced is currently begging for students and that should brake UC’s incentives to expand Cal. If that’s true, then why, according to the very first post on this thread, has Cal agreed to expand future enrollment yet again?</p>
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<p>Uh, financial aid can never be recouped no matter what. </p>
<p>Ask yourself: for all those students who are on financial aid and who are living in private housing right now, how is Cal “recouping” the cost of that financial aid? Obviously it is not. Cal just hands out checks to those students, and those students pay for whatever they want. In other words, financial aid is a cost borne by Cal no matter where those students live. </p>
<p>Let me give you a even more basic example:</p>
<p>Let’s say that my father is rich and gives me a $1000 per month allowance for my rent. But my father is also a landlord and owns a bunch of apartment buildings, and let’s say for simplicity that those apartments cost $1000 a month. I could choose to live in one of Dad’s apartments. Or I could choose to live elsewhere. If I choose to live in one of Dad’s apartments, then I just pay Dad back the very same $1000 a month that he was paying me. But if I choose to live elsewhere, then Dad just gives me $1000 a month and I pay my landlord out of those funds. And of course if I live somewhere else, then presumably somebody else will be able to live in Dad’s apartment and pay him the $1000 monthly rent. </p>
<p>Now, to make life easier for me from a paperwork standpoint, Dad simply says that if I want to live in his apartment, he will just simply not give me the $1000 a month, but he will also not charge me anything. That’s obviously administratively easier than just giving me money and then having me hand it right back to him. But there is no additional subsidy in my living in his apartment. Either way, Dad is basically going to be out $1000 a month either way. Either he pays me $1000 a month directly. Or I live in his apartment, which means that he forgoes having another tenant who would be paying him $1000 a month. But either way, the cost is exactly the same to Dad.</p>
<p>Review the last 2 paragraphs a few times, and I think the issue will become crystal clear. Heck, work it out on paper if you have to.</p>
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<p>Uh, no, the definition of ownership is always the same. Ownership always means the right to sell the property for whatever you want and keep all the proceeds, or to even give it away.</p>
<p>Again: I actually own my car. If I want to sell it for $1 trillion, and I can find somebody to actually pay that, then I can keep the profits. If I just want to give my car away, I can do that too. That’s because I have true ownership.</p>
<p>But the Regents can’t do that. Like I said, can the Regents just give Cal away? No, of course not. But that, by itself means that the Regents don’t really own Cal, for after all, ownership means that you have the right to give the property anyway. Similarly, if the Regents wanted to sell Cal for $1 trillion and pocket the proceeds, they would be stopped from doing so. That, again, proves that the Regents don’t really own Cal. </p>
<p>Hence, whatever you want to call the relationship between the Regents and Cal, it is not true ownership, for ownership necessarily includes the right to do whatever you want with the property. The best that can be said is that the Regents and the state share joint custody of Cal, but that is clearly not the same thing as ownership.</p>
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<p>In fact, I have provided numerous examples of other universities moving entire departments and schools to different locations. So why exactly is it so outrageous that Cal might do so someday? Is Cal really so different from those other universities? </p>
<p>Furthermore, I have continually provided one shining example of one school that could be moved off-campus and benefit from doing so: the law school could be moved to Oakland or some other nearby place that has a more vibrant legal community. Again, how much “law” is actually adjudicated within the city of Berkeley? Wouldn’t it be easier for the law school to be located closer to large law firms and courthouses? And like I said, what do the law students really gain from having the law school in the city of Berkeley anyway (or vice versa, what do other students gain from having the law school in town?). Do students in other departments take a lot of law classes? Do law students really use a lot of general campus resources? Be honest.</p>
<p>And besides, you’re missing the point anyway. The question is not whether you really need to move entire schools/departments out of the city. The issue at hand is whether you can just move some students out of the city. I believe you could. Is that really so outrageous? Lots of universities run split campuses. I don’t see why that would necessarily be such a terrible thing to do.</p>
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<p>Uh, that’s a quite odd defense coming from you. However “small” you think the increase has been, you yourself have stated that the increase should never have happened in the first place and has been a direct violation of the Master Plan. In fact, if anything, according to your very first post of this thread, Cal’s enrollment should have actually declined in conformance with the Master Plan. Not only has that not happened, enrollment has actually increased. Maybe the increase is ‘slight’, but that’s missing the forest for the trees, which is to show that Cal has repeatedly violated its prior commitments to keep student enrollment down. </p>
<p>It’s like making a New Year’s resolution that I’m going to lose 10 pounds, and then not only not losing it, but actually gaining 5 pounds. Sure, I can console myself with the fact that I didn’t gain much weight, but that’s not the point, the point is that I am clearly not adhering to my original resolution.</p>
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<p>But again that’s exactly how Cal’s situation is different from Berkeley landowners. Do those landowners subsidize their student tenets…No. They just recieve rent (whether its the students money or Cal’s financial aid). Cal’s situation is very different. Cal would basically be paying for many of these students to live in the dorms. The argument was whether Cal would buy land in Berkeley and build new dorms on it. I said that Cal wouldn’t because it wouldn’t recoop any of the millions they spent on buying the land alone. Again right now landowners in Berkeley and across the country are facing foreclosure and that’s and that’s they don’t give their tenets “financial aid” like Berkeley would be doing. How can you not see that Cal’s situation is very different from other landowners in Berkeley?</p>