
UC proposes its first enrollment cap on out-of-state students - socalnate1
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-uc-limit-nonresident-students-20170306-story.html
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azernik
A couple of important notes FTA:

1) the cap is currently not limiting for the system as a whole, as the
proportion is around 16%

2) It also includes a per-campus 20% cap, with raised caps for campuses that
are already above 20%. So Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD will be prevented from
raising their nonresident proportions, and new growth will be redirected to
schools like Merced (only 1% nonresident students).

My personal observation: no evidence is presented that nonresident admissions
reduce the _absolute_ number of Californians the system can support.

~~~
yaacov
That's because nonresident admissions don't reduce the absolute number of
Californians the system can support!

They pay much more in tuition than the UC spends on their education, and much
of the remainder gets spent on in-state residents.

In-state admissions have fallen at highly competitive schools like UCLA not
because out-of-state students are taking up more of a set number of spots, but
because the amount of in-state students whose educations the UC can afford to
subsidize has fallen because of decreasing state funding per student.

Declining admit rates of in-state students is a problem, but out-of-state
students are part of the solution. I really, really hope this proposal doesn't
get passed.

~~~
dvt
Mass accepting out-of-state students is most certainly not a solution, it's a
band-aid (not to mention it basically screws California taxpayers). The
solution would be to just increase state funding AND cap out-of-state admit
rates.

It's very hard for Berkeley and UCLA to stay competitive with Stanford and
Caltech (and the Ivy League) when their private counterparts not only offer
better financial aid for at-need low-income students, but are also starting to
be in the same ballpark for _in-state_ middle-class students. Not only that,
but the main idea behind the UC system is that it was intended for California
students _first_.

UCLA had over 100,000 applications last year, the most out of any other
school, public or private. I am completely okay with declining out-of-state
students in favor of comparable California students. It's just that to afford
that, the UC system needs more money. Heck, I even think price gouging out-of-
state applicants could work.

~~~
stale2002
"it basically screws California taxpayers"

It does literally the opposite. Out of state people are a net money gain, not
a net money loss.

The more out of state people you can, the more instate people you can afford
to accept.

~~~
dvt
> The more out of state people you can, the more instate people you can afford
> to accept.

Except that classes are overcrowded, understaffed, and underfunded[1]. There
might be a balance, but we're not there yet.. and what we're doing isn't
working.

[1] [https://theaggie.org/2016/10/12/ucs-overcrowded-and-
underfun...](https://theaggie.org/2016/10/12/ucs-overcrowded-and-underfunded/)

~~~
stale2002
Correct. And removing the out of staters would make the classes more
underfunded, and more understaffed, because they have less money.

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vmarsy
> Her own child was turned down by her top three UC choices two years ago,
> despite SAT scores and a grade point average above the 90th percentile. Her
> daughter ended up at a fourth UC campus.

Why not simply follows Texas' _Top 10% Rule_ [1] ?

> The law guarantees Texas students who graduated in the top ten percent of
> their high school class automatic admission to _all_ state-funded
> universities

This top 10% rule, (in conjunction with a minimum SAT to avoid bad schools)
would solve that mom problem (assuming the child is above the 90th percentile
for that particular school).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_House_Bill_588](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_House_Bill_588)

~~~
flat6turbo
because there's too many people in california to do that.

there is a similar heuristic in place, but of course, the top 3 UC's is the
same for everyone (berkeley, LA, SD)

[http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/califor...](http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/california-
residents/admissions-index/)

~~~
Paul-ish
In practice doesn't this direct everyone to UC Merced?

~~~
pirocks
In short yes. Also UC Riverside.

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forrestthewoods
Good. State universities are perversely incentivized to prefer higher paying
students from out-of-state and international.

University of Washington, the state's top school, is now 1/3 non-state
residents. It's a serious problem.

~~~
tptacek
It's not perverse if out-of-state students fund reduced tuition for in-state
students. But apparently that wasn't happening in the UC system.

~~~
yaacov
I'm an undergraduate at a UC school right now, and I can tell you that that
_is_ happening in the UC system. State funding per student has collapsed [1]
and campuses are scrambling to cover the costs. One way to do that is by
increasing tuition, and another is by admitting out-of-state students who pay
massive premiums to attend the university.

Out of state students pay about $50k/yr to attend a UC. In-state students pay
about $12K, and the UC spends a bit over $30k per student. That means that
each out-of-state student provides enough revenue to pay for an _additional_
in-state student!

Absent additional state funding (lol), an enrollment cap would necessarily
result in tuition increases. I really really hope it doesn't get passed.

[1]
[http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_quick.asp?i=1119](http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_quick.asp?i=1119)

~~~
reneherse
>Absent additional state funding (lol), an enrollment cap would necessarily
result in tuition increases. I really really hope it doesn't get passed.

Or, how about the UC system reduces spending per student?

~~~
yaacov
They already spend less than most comparably-ranked universities. If you take
a look at the link I posted on the top-level comment, you'll see that expenses
per student have been increasing pretty slowly.

Of course, waste should still be cut if it exists. Are there any specific
programs that you think should have their funding reduced?

~~~
reneherse
No expert, just a former student with a sense of fairness and disgust for
waste. But I would hope to see:

-Cuts in administration size and salaries.

-Cuts in facility expenditures; figure out a way to do more with less.

-An increase in the number of full time faculty.

-An increase in faculty and graduate instructor compensation.

------
smaili
> The proposed limit on students from other states and countries — which would
> be the first ever for the 10-campus public research university — comes after
> a scathing state audit last year found that UC was hurting California
> students by admitting too many out-of-state applicants. UC President Janet
> Napolitano has blasted those findings as unfair and unwarranted, but state
> lawmakers are requiring that UC adopt a policy restricting nonresident
> students in order to get an additional $18.5 million in funding this year.

Isn't this blackmail? Or am I missing something?

~~~
qntty
The state is able to make funding contingent.

The state doesn't want to own up to the fact that UC is so underfunded that
its struggling to fulfill its purpose of educating Californians. To get more
money, UC turns to admitting more students who can pay full price. So the
solution by lawmakers is to solve the symptom (too few students from
California) rather than the problem (not enough money to support lots of in-
state students).You can bet that when UC pushes back against being squeezed
even more by the state, the state will use it as an excuse to cut funding
more.

~~~
handedness
The UC system spends $120K/year per student, roughly 10x the tuition and fees
a California resident will pay to attend.

The UC system also has an absurdly high ratio of administrative staff to
academic staff, and administrative staff to undergraduates. It has become
something of a jobs program for the state of California, and is the third-
largest employer of a state that is the 6th-largest economy in the world.

Something has to give.

~~~
laurencerowe
I don't know where your $120K/year per student figure comes from, but it seems
highly misleading. The most recent figures I could find (AY 2012-2013) put the
cost at $16,890. [https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/uc-
educational-e...](https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/uc-educational-
expenses-lower-today-20-years-ago-report-finds)

Research focussed universities like UC do of course spend a lot more on
research, but those activities have their own dedicated funding streams,
mostly Federal grants.

~~~
handedness
That core fund report seems to be missing something, as if the total total
per-student cost were $16,890, the vast majority of that would be covered by
the current $12.3K annual tuition (to say nothing of +$27K from out-of-state
students). The UC system would therefore be unlikely to have the underfunded
pension problem they currently face, for example.

Their annual budget is pushing $30B, and their student population–expensive
post-graduates included–clocks in at around a quarter million.

Those numbers have changed from year to year, but last I checked, their total
expenditures came out to around $120K/student. Texas A&M by comparison is
around $90K/student, with Harvard pushing $200K (their tuition is 5x what the
UC system's is, for comparison).

~~~
canttestthis
Your calculations are oversimplified. The real cost to a student should be
around $20k.

Does the $30B per year not cover the funding for the UC medical centers,
museums, athletic programs, etc.? The amount of money actually spent on
students (through faculty salaries, financial aid, lab equipment, etc) is
closer to $7B. Also you need to remove grad students from the calculation
entirely, they disproportionately affect the numbers and they don't have out
of state cap. Once you take all those factors into account you get ~$20k.

~~~
handedness
I'm not sure why those areas can be selectively dismissed. That the UC system
overextends itself in a variety of non-instructional areas isn't a compelling
case for its fiscal health and management acumen.

If I ran a training business with a negative P&L and couldn't fully fund my
employee's pensions, I would hardly be able to say, "your calculations are
oversimplified. Our losses include our museum and lacrosse team."

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pmorici
Never knew CA was so anti-immigrant.

------
zvpxdlk
Why not just accept the brightest students with the best resumes?

~~~
saagarjha
Out of state students pay more in tuition as compared to in-state students.

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dbcooper
nb. This only applies to undergraduate students.

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alansammarone
I don't understand why is it ok for a university to serve a political purpose.
A university is a place in which science is done, nothing more. No matter by
whom.

~~~
Daishiman
Education policy is driven by politics. Saying that it's apolitical is just
ignoring that aspect of reality.

~~~
CalChris
Going further, government is controlled by politics and we are talking about a
government institution.

~~~
wutbrodo
Right; it's particularly stupid to say that politics (and hence gov't) has no
role in an institution that exists as a governmental entity.

------
eruditely
The review that was done awhile ago showed that nonresidents reduced the
amount of residents in the program, any attempt to merely walk-over the issue
is a sign that you are lying and speaking in poor faith. As if there never was
any negative set of circumstances that could be predicated fundamentally on
the idea that <outsiders> did in <Californian Residents/Insiders> people _from
here_ , all that talk, and all that pretense when you rap to just your
favorite music video......

~~~
scythe
>The review that was done awhile ago showed that nonresidents reduced the
amount of residents in the program

Cf. what the audit actually found:

>The audit found that out-of-state applicants benefited from _lowered
admission standards_ [italics mine], while California students increasingly
were turned away from their campus of choice.

The only reason to give out-of-state students _lower_ admission standards than
in-state students is if you're not merely admitting them but preferring them,
and the _obvious_ motive in preferring out-of-state students is that they pay
five times as much if not more in tuition compared to in-state students.

One way to evaluate proposed solutions to problems is "can the proposed
solution solve the problem?"; if the out-of-state enrollment in 2006 was 5.5%
and in 2016 was 15% and the cap is 20% (these are the real numbers) then
obviously the proposed solution _cannot_ solve the problem and it is frankly
questionable whether it is even a legitimate _attempt_ to solve the problem.
It appears to instead be a way to politically grandstand by scapegoating the
UC admissions departments and the out-of-state students instead of admitting
there's a funding problem. The $18M in funding is also a pittance:

>UC spokeswoman Dianne Klein said the proposed policy balanced the needs of
California students with the benefits that nonresident students bring —
diverse perspectives as well as millions in additional tuition revenue, which
added up to nearly $550 million in 2016-17.

Increasing the proportion of out-of-state students by 1% here appears to bring
in about $50 million. There is not even a clear financial incentive for the UC
system to bother following this directive! They would make more money by
ignoring it.

The financial data indicates that the UC system will likely ignore this
directive. Considering that the State used a tiny carrot instead of a big
stick, they probably know this. If the State were serious in addressing this
problem they could threaten to fine the UC system for discriminating against
local students as was found in the audit. However this would kill the "golden
goose" and result in drastic underfunding of the system because out-of-state
students are currently covering a budget gap way bigger than this proposal
could ever address.

So the legislature is not going to do that. They made this proposal to rile up
gullible Californian nativists who think outsiders are the source of all their
problems, and _you fell for it_.

~~~
yorwba
Could an in-state student pay the out-of-state tuition to also benefit from
the lowered admission standards?

