status of CA publics

ucbalumnus
Sat, 29 Oct 2011 01:07:48 +0000

drax12:

Do you really think the facilities and staff at the UC is underutilized, that the UC as a whole is underenrolled for them to be able to make these changes?



The expansion of ELC may just result in more offers of admission to Merced (because ELC does not guarantee admission to the campus of the student’s choice), which is the campus most likely to be underused.



drax12:

What happens if no one whats to attend UC Merced? Then what? Do we use it as a very expensive two-year transfer institution?



If really no one is willing to attend, then closing or mothballing it could make sense economically, as it would substantially reduce the fixed costs (though there could be political problems with that).



drax12:

I don’t even see UCLA or Cal as being able to compete by charging 250% more, essentially privatizing, without reducing enrollment significantly. If they both privatize, then they have to become more like private inst wrt size.



Private? Like USC? (Berkeley is slightly smaller than USC, while UCLA is slightly larger.)

There are no good solutions to the problem, since all of them (e.g. effective privatization) have their drawbacks. But making maximum use of existing capacity that carries a fixed cost makes sense, regardless of what the overall strategy is.