One of the most important paths to upward mobility, open to people from all economic classes, is narrowing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/upshot/the-in-state-tuition-break-slowly-disappearing.html
“The University of California, Berkeley, enrolled 384 fewer in-state freshmen in 2012 compared with 2000, while out-of-state American students grew by more than 300 and the number of international students increased eightfold.”
Here’s why it’s gotten so hard to get into Cal and UCLA by even accomplished students.
Make sure to read the comments section attached to the article. The author leaves out some very relevant context to this situation. For example, he seems to let the state legislatures off the hook. Also, his depiction of the situation at U of Alabama is incomplete and appears to be a purposeful slight.
In state discounts depend on state government subsidies, which state governments are cutting back on. No surprise…
Considering that the funding that their respective legislatures are providing UMich and UVa now make up a single digit percentage of their budgets (in some recent years, they were in the low single-digits), the in-state discount provided to families in MI and VA is an absolute steal.
CA isn’t quite there yet but is trending there.
@katliamom, considering that Cal now takes in over 5K freshmen a year, a change of 300-400 spots doesn’t increase the difficulty of admissions drastically.
As a Michigan resident, this is old news.
@PurpleTitan – good point.
As a NH resident, this is sadly old news here as well. Our state flagship was more expensive for us vs. any private LAC. And our governor complains that STEM kids are leaving the state…
Maybe old news to us here on CC, but a good read for those not in or done with the process (or sadly disappointed).
Florida hasn’t had it too bad. Only about a $5,000 increase over the past 10 years. Certainly not as bad as other states with $10,000+ jumps.
I think the author purposely misrepresented the reason OOS students are in UA. A very good percentage of the OOS students are there on full-tuition or large scholarships. Over 30% of undergrads at UA have ACT scores of 30 or higher. The OOS students flock to UA because of the very generous merit FA when most colleges won’t give them much at all, and they likely don’t qualify for need based FA.
OOS students at the UC’s pay literally triple the tuition of in-state students. The OOS students are not taking spots away from in-state, they are paying for additional spots for in-state students. If you dropped 100 OOS students, you’d have to drop a corresponding 200 in-state students that would’ve been funded by those OOS students. Either that or the UC’s would have to significantly increase in-state tuition. The real issue is lack of funding at a state level. I think the UC’s are doing a decent job in keeping tuition down and leveraging their reputations to demand very high tuition from OOS students to subsidize their in-state students. Many in-state schools probably aren’t able to do so to the same degree.
This is so old news. Been going on for decades. But this phenomenon is relatively new to UCLA and Cal.
Among the elite state flagships, UNC/CH is one of the few that still operates on the old model. NC provides $26k in support for each in-state UNC/CH undergrad. OOS enrollment is limited to 19%.
Compare UM. $16k of state support per in-state undergrad student. OOS enrollment is 43%. UVA gets $8,600 per in-state student. OOS enrollment is 33%.
Most state schools really can’t attract many out-of-state students. But those that can, do.
Colorado 49%; Alabama 40%; Ole Miss 38%; Miami Ohio 32%; Purdue 35%; Iowa 39%; Oregon 39%; Indiana 29%; Penn State 30%; Charleston 37%; Oklahoma 34%.
Law and business schools in VA, MI and CA have financially “gone private.” If you stop taking the low and declining number of state dollars, then you get to scale back or eliminate in-state tuition. Pretty easy math.
Alabama’s OOS number above is dated. As of last September it was overall 51% OOS, with the incoming freshman class of 2014 at 60% OOS.
Sorry, oldmom. I just meant we’ve been dealing with this since I can remember. I’m sad it’s spreading elsewhere.
If there is a bright lining, it’s made your ^^undergrad stronger and stronger each year.
@romanigypsyeyes, though arguably, because MI was one of the first states to feel the hollowing out of industry, it forced UMich (and MSU) to be better at gaining funds from elsewhere and get in shape to compete. By what I have heard, it seems that the bureacracy at Cal is more legarthic and more of a mess than at UMich. Arguably, that’s because the UMich administration got a kick in the rear earlier and so planned better for a future with lower state funding while UC administrators got fat and happy and thought that manna would always keep falling down.
California’s state budget has suffered from a number of characteristics.
A. The crime wave of the 1980s and early 1990s resulted in a general increase in prison sentencing for crimes, probably far beyond the point of diminishing returns of crime prevented or deterred per dollar spent on prisons. Law enacted in the 1990s, like the overly-broad “three strikes” law (recently scaled back) helped swell the prison population, crowding out state budget dollars from UCs and CSUs (despite the prisons themselves being overcrowded to the point that court rulings have required the state to reduce overcrowding).
B. California tax revenues are quite volatile, due to a very progressive income tax structure. High income taxpayers tend to have volatile income levels (due to larger capital gains in good times, but capital losses in bad times), so that good times bring surpluses of income tax revenue. Unfortunately, most politicians cannot resist spending surpluses as quickly as they show up (this includes both actual spending, and cutting taxes), so that economic downturns lead to even worse budget problems, as the newly committed spending and/or tax cuts compete for the now diminished budget.
C. Much of the state budget (prisons as noted above and K-12) is effectively mandatory spending, so any of the more discretionary items, including UCs and CSUs, have to compete for the rest of the budget whose percentage shrink in downturns is much greater than the overall budget shrinkage.
It is not surprising that, in the history of UC tuition, the tuition levels have generally been stable in good times, but rise quickly in economic downturns.