CommentsTHIS IS WHAT I KNOW--2015 was the most brutal year ever for Californians hoping to score a spot in the Bruin Class of 2019. Of close to 58,000 who applied, only 9,351 gained admittance to UCLA, which works out to an admit rate of about 16 percent. At Berkeley, the acceptance rate hovered around 19 percent. To put things in perspective, UCLA rejected more applicants than Harvard, Princeton, and Yale combined. (To be fair, UCLA gets four to five times more applicants than the three Ivy’s.)
On the heels of those slews of late March rejection emails comes a state audit that concluded The University of California has been admitting thousands of out-of-state applicants who had lower GPAs and test scores. California is far from alone in the quest to maximize student dollars. Forty-three of fifty state “flagships” have had decreasing percentages of in-state students within the past decade.
Out-of-state applicants bring more money to the public university system but many, including Governor Brown, have questioned whether Californians are getting a fair shot. The 116-page state audit concluded that about 29 percent of non-Californians admitted had GPAs and test scores below the median of residents who reside in the state. Nonresidents pay $38,108 in fees and tuition compared to $13,400 in-state.
According to the state’s Master Plan for Higher Education, UC had been directed to admit only those non-resident applicants who at least held the qualifications of the upper half of residents eligible for admission; that threshold changed in 2011. Non-residents only needed to “compare favorably” to their in-state competitors. While the revised practice is helping bring in more funds, the practice is hurting California’s high school grads.
The other piece of the puzzle is since 2008, the regents have allowed campuses to keep the bonus tuition money from non-Californians instead of sharing with other campuses. The audit shows that out-of-state enrollment has quadrupled in the past decade, while enrollments of Californians has only grown by 10 percent, despite a 52 percent increase in in-state applications. The report recommends legislation limiting nonresident enrollment to correct the current situation.
UC President Janet Napolitano has promised to limit out-of-state enrollment at both UCLA and Berkeley and all UC undergraduate campuses plan to raise their in-state figures significantly during next year’s application period.
To ensure the change, two assembly members, Kristen Olsen R-Modesto (Stanislaus County) and Catharine Baker R-San Ramon plan to introduce a bill requiring higher admission standards for non-resident students. However, UC is autonomous, unlike the California State System, and might not have to comply.
UC’s Napolitano argues that the university system enrolls more California students than the funds the system receives from the state and that the admissions process does favor residents. “If anything has constrained the enrollment of California students, it has been reductions in state funding. Nonresidents pay the full cost of their education – and more,” she wrote in UC’s Straight Talk on Hot-Button Issues: UC Admissions, Finances, and Transparency 2016.
According to the audit, however, the discrepancy has more to do with increased costs rather than decreased state funding. UC executives typically earn more than other executives in the state. For example, Governor Brown’s salary is $169,559 compared to Napolitano’s salary of $570,000.
Napolitano argues that qualified California students do receive a spot at one of the UC’s campuses. However, the audit shows that although UC admission is guaranteed to all California public high school students in the top 12.5 percent of their class, students might not end up at the campus of their choice. According to the University of California website, an admissions index applied converts SAT or ACT scores matched with GPAs. Students in the top 9 percent of California high school students are accepted. Using either index, upon rejection from their top choice, students are funneled to another UC campus, often UC Merced, which most students end up rejecting. Non-residents are often accepted at their first choice and throughout the system, are displacing students in popular majors like business, engineering, and social science.
While the University of California website states, “As a public institution, we prioritize admission for California residents,” the audit arrived at a different conclusion.
The one-year UC audit was prompted by Assemblyman Mike Gipson, D-Carson (Los Angeles) at a cost of almost $400,000.
(Beth Cone Kramer is a successful Los Angeles writer and a columnist for CityWatch.)
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