flu, I believe educating our own residents is more important than choosing to educate foreign or out-of-state residents instead (taking our OWN residents’ slots).
In another vein, I also don’t agree with the US participating in foreign wars at a HUGE financial cost and sacrifice of our young people, while we have millions of people in this country who live in “food deserts” and are medically uninsured.
Our state and country’s priorities need to be focused on our own people. Other states and countries prioritize their own “citizens and residents” over outsiders so why doesn’t CA and the US?
In the case of CA public universities, the deans, dept heads and instructors need to get off their high horses and settle for less retirement pay for their 12-32 hr workweeks, eight months per year. A big part of the reason for rate hikes and budget cuts is because the state has to fund these ~exorbitant~ academic pensions which are way higher than other types of rank-and-file gov’t pensions in CA. This creates the slippery slope where the campuses begin recruiting elsewhere (and admitting students left and right from out of state/country for extra revenue). Meanwhile, there are less and less admission slots to fill every year due to the cuts.
Ask yourself why public universities in states in the midwest and southwest aren’t as impacted as they are in CA? Ask yourself why it is so much easier for an in-state student from one of these states (KS, AR, OK, TX, NM, AZ, for example) to be admitted to one of their own public universities than it is in CA. It’s very likely that these states don’t pay out these ridiculously-high pensions to their university staff members. Are these schools lesser schools than CA public universities? NO! In many ways they are better because a student can actually graduate in four years without constantly crashing desperately-needed classes of 500+ students and repeatedly being turned away semester after semester.
Even once admitted to a CA public university, a student has no guarantee of actually graduating there (thru no fault of their own) in the major field of study that they decided to attend it for in the first place! He/she may very well have to attend other campuses to get all the needed credits or take much longer to finish, costing him/her 25-50% more to actually obtain the degree. It’s no wonder that many 20-somethings are saddled with exorbitant student debt upon finally graduating!
Being a public college student today in CA is akin to (unwittingly) participating in a (very expensive) “comedy of errors.”
It’s ridiculous. College isn’t a “career.” It is simply a means to begin a career.
flu, how should HS seniors of today who do not at least have a 3.9 GPA be advised by their counselors? Should they all be advised to pay for separate applications to 10+ schools to see if any spaghetti sticks to the ceiling? Should they all be advised to crowd into the CC’s and hope they will all be able to get all their (needed) GE’s there, along with the rest of the masses? Can the CC’s accomodate all these students?? How many of these assoc degree holders do you think will actually be later admitted as juniors in CA public universities? Do you think HS counselors should begin recommending ROP (training in the trades) and cosmetology school (like they did in the ’60’s and ’70’s)?
Given that we can’t expect CA HS graduates with a ~3.7 GPA (or lower) to get accepted to a public university in CA in the future, what’s the solution for this crowd (90%+ of current HS grads)??
And why do all these foreign students from Asia want to attend school in CA (at great expense)? Don’t they have good colleges to apply to over there?
