It’s disheartening to see that while other public university systems significantly favor in-state applicants, the University of California System only provides a marginal boost in admissions rate. For instance, the University of California, Berkeley, reports a 15% acceptance rate for in-state applicants, a figure that drops to a mere 8% for out-of-state students. Similarly, the University of California, Los Angeles, offers a 9% acceptance rate for in-state applicants, but this only inches up to 8% for out-of-state applicants, providing a meager 1% boost in acceptance rates.
However, the University of California system is very guarded in disclosing precise admission statistics, only publishing data about their overall acceptance rate and omitting the proportion of instate preference; therefore, the data about instate versus out-of-state acceptance rates come from third-party estimations.
This lack of preference for in-state residents is exceptionally unusual; the University of North Carolina System policy mandates that at most 18 percent of out-of-state first-year students may enroll. Notable North Carolina universities, such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, uphold this mandate with a 43.1 percent acceptance rate for North Carolina applicants and 8.2 percent for out-of-state applicants, displaying profound preference for North Carolina applicants. Similarly, the University of Michigan, one of the most popular universities, boasts an in-state acceptance rate of around 40%, while its out-of-state acceptance rate was closer to 17%. By proxy, they are leaving only the California admission system to provide minuscule leverage to their tax-paying families.
The UC system began accepting more out-of-state applicants following the 2008 recession, citing a need for more students who pay full-price tuition compared to the discounted Californian price. This seemingly temporary fix still wreaks havoc on in-state applicants who need to reap the benefits of preferential admissions that other states provide to loyal taxpayers.
Today, the in-state cost of attendance is $38,436 compared to the whopping $76,436 for non-residents. This disproportionate surcharge continues to act as a cash cow for the University of California System, bringing in a total of $22.5B, with 11% coming from the state, the rest mostly coming from medical centers, museums, and other sales, with only 13% coming from tuition. Additionally, despite having some of the most grueling tax policies in the nation, raking in nearly half of people’s gross income, and implementing some of the highest sales and luxury taxes, the in-state price is astronomically higher than other public universities, compared with the national average cost of in-state tuition of being only $11,560. Even with charging a copious amount of money to attend, UC schools such as Berkeley can not even guarantee students housing past their freshman year, leading to hyper-competitive housing markets, further disadvantaging low-income students, and shining further light on the stark pitfalls of the UC system.
For years, California residents have been voicing their strong desire for more leverage in the admissions process, a sentiment that has even led to calls for action from state legislators. Other states, such as North Carolina, have implemented firm cutoffs at roughly 20% out-of-state admits compared to 80% in-state admits. This is an action that the University of California and the state government should consider emulating. Ultimately, Californians should be entitled to a significant increase in acceptances, with a corresponding decrease in the non-resident acceptance rate.
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*This article was edited with Grammarly, a software that uses articifial intelligence to decrease grammatical error.
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