About 4 years ago I took a solid (albeit somewhat low-wage) job in the UC system. It turned out to be a great gig with few regrets.
Also around that time I had recovered from the dotbomb mess well enough to be in the market for a condo/house. I didn't have much in the way of a down payment so I started researching what other options I had in the way of financing.
It was around 2005 that I figured out I either had to go back to the private sector and make more money or take out some super-risky loan product. I also started reading about the 'housing bubble'. Given my experience with the SoCal economy I also figured we were in for a major recession once it popped. So I decided to wait it out at the Uni.
Fast-forward to '08 and it looks like I made the right decision. I have my income locked in (got a big raise too), take a free shuttle to work and have great benefits. UC is showing record enrollments, which is no surprise as institutes of higher education do better in a recession.
I'm not ashamed to admit I got wiped out during the tech boom. I went from brunching with the CTO of Akamai, being wined and dined by Dell while making 50k on private IPO's to racking servers at a Uni for 50k a year.
And you know what, it was worth it. I learned humility. Something the RE bulls could use in spades.
For every loser there is a winner. It really does pay to be on the right side of history.
Um…. Thanks for exemplifying my point about "it can't affect me".
I'm not trying to pick on you, so sorry if it comes across this way…You might want to revisit history about the last time CA had a budget crisis, and what happened to Junior Colleges and UC schools in terms of funding, grants, etc. I hope you aren't affected by Arnold's proposals.
The budget outlook is grim for the University of California.
Student fees may be going up 10 percent, higher than the 7 percent earlier projected.And it's possible the 10-campus system will have to consider turning away thousands of eligible students.
UC's governing board of regents heard those options as they met at UCLA Thursday.No action was taken, although the board is expected to decide what to do about fees in March. Tuition fees have increased steadily over the past five years.The average student now pays about $7,400 a year, not counting room, board and other expenses. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed a budget that gives UC a $417 million shortfall.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Each of the nine University of California campuses received a record number of applications for the coming fall, a time when the colleges are anticipating reductions in state funding.
More than 121,000 students have applied to a UC school for the fall 2008 semester, about 58 percent more than applied a decade ago, according to preliminary numbers released Tuesday by the university system.
UCLA received the most applications, 70,328, followed by UC Berkeley (60,709), UC San Diego (57,116), UC Santa Barbara (55,871) and UC Irvine (51,935).
Every campus is experiencing unprecedented demand, including ones that historically have had a harder time attracting students. For example, UC Santa Cruz and UC Riverside, which saw applications drop off slightly last year, are fielding 13.4 percent and 7 percent more, respectively.
The system's newest campus, UC Merced, had 10,180 applicants, 16 percent more than when it was enrolling its first class for the 2005-06 school year. UC Davis, with 48,653 applicants, had the next-biggest surge – 6,342, or 15 percent more than a year earlier.
For the UC system as a whole, the pool includes nearly 26,000 transfer students and 95,000 students seeking admission as freshmen, an increase of 9 percent over last year. The university accepted 57,318 of the 87,213 students who sought spots in the current freshmen class.
Although a boom in the nation's college-aged population partially explains the increases, university officials said it does not account for all of it. Freshmen applications from seniors at public high schools in California rose more than 6 percent, while public high schools are expected to graduate about 3 percent more students come June.
Even though higher education is facing the threat of funding cuts because of a projected state budget deficit, a system spokesman said the University of California hoped to continue its tradition of offering admission to every eligible student who applies.
