To out of state students, UC is pretty much private…Downsides are lack of classes when you want and (my experience) tougher to drop classes if things get tough to save your GPA. You can withdraw the whole quarter, but you just lost a few thousand to redo a quarter.

If my kids were given a full ride, I’d definitely push for the private CA places if they were a good fit for them.

This is actually how it “should” be. California residents pay the taxes that pay for the UC system.

It’s also the end result of tight budgets and political pressures to keep tuition down for instate students. Out of state (and international) students don’t have the same political leverage. There’s a somewhat legitimate attitude that if they don’t like the price sticker, they can go elsewhere.

Of course, this has made out of state and international students a lot more lucrative for the University, especially those willing to pay full sticker price with no financial aid. This has led to some discussion about how many slots should be reserved for in state students.

The budgets are tight because the schools have spent too much money on things that aren’t all that useful for educating students. Everybody says the problem is state funding went down but when you look at the actual numbers, per student spending by the state is pretty close to the same as it was 10 years ago. Alright so let’s factor in salary increases for the educators of 50% over the past 10 years if that. So UC schools should be costing about 50% more maybe even 75% more than they did 10-15 years ago, but instead they cost 300-400% more. Where is all that money going. It’s going into more administrators, more glitzy buildings, more things that do little to nothing to provide an education.

[quote=njtosd]The University of Michigan generally ranks equal to or higher than UC schools (except UCLA and Berkeley) and out of state tuition is about $41,000. Great engineering school, science, not sure when it comes to liberal arts. This relates to another thread, but is the sunshine, etc. really worth $60,000+, and potentially the interest on the student loans?[/quote]

To me? No. I love the UC system, but I wouldn’t pay out of state tuition for it.

The ivy league school that I attended was had an in-state tuition price if you chose a major in Agriculture/Life Sciences (like if you wanted to be a Vet) and or OperationsResearch/IR. Current tuition for those majors would be $16k/semester for in state ($32/year), or $24.5k/semester ($49k/year) for out of state. For every other major, it would be $49k/year.
Many folks that did ORIE major ended up going to Management Consulting+B-school. So it’s not that far off from out-of-state tuitions at a good public school. Again, the assumption is if you can get in.

Never had to fight to get a class….

[quote=flu]Speaking of random coursework at UC schools..

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/may/12/ucsd-naked-final-exam/%5B/quote%5D

I saw that. How does this go on without the administration finding out? How can this professor defend his actions? The liability for UC is scary . . .

[quote=livinincali]The budgets are tight because the schools have spent too much money on things that aren’t all that useful for educating students. Everybody says the problem is state funding went down but when you look at the actual numbers, per student spending by the state is pretty close to the same as it was 10 years ago. Alright so let’s factor in salary increases for the educators of 50% over the past 10 years if that. So UC schools should be costing about 50% more maybe even 75% more than they did 10-15 years ago, but instead they cost 300-400% more. Where is all that money going. It’s going into more administrators, more glitzy buildings, more things that do little to nothing to provide an education.[/quote]

Except that they’ve been moving more and more toward using adjunct/part-time professors who barely make enough to get by and are usually entitled to no additional benefits (health, pension, etc.). It’s hard to believe that the universities are paying much more today than they were ~20+ years ago, at least where the instructors are concerned.

I’d like to know more about where the money is going, too, as the notion that they are running out of money just makes no sense, IMO. Yes, state/outside funding is down, overall, and that does make a difference, but the purported extent of the budget problems still doesn’t make any sense.