UCOP’s Equalization Plan Will Likely Have the Opposite Effect in the Long Run

…and the folks at UCOP probably know it.

The Daily Bruin is running a story about UCOP’s “rebenching” plan designed to equalize the payment per undergraduate each campus receives.  Rebenching is to be phased in over time. Ostensibly, nothing is being taken away.  UCLA currently gets more than the average.  So in the future it will get lower increments.  Of course, that is a take-away.

So what will be the likely outcome?  Despite the fact that the Regents and UCOP are officially against campus-set tuition differentials, differential tuition is what is more likely to happen under the plan.  UCLA is likely to find ways of compensating for the take-away by charging more.  Given its pool of applicants, it could charge more without adverse impacts.  It will likely increase its out-of-state student enrollments, again, because it can.

No one in officialdom wants to acknowledge what is really happening.  If you listened to the Regents’ retreat posted earlier on this blog, you will hear that the official position of UCOP is that unequal tuition would not be a good idea right now – but later is left open. Anyway, this blog is under no constraint to pretend.

The Bruin article is at:
http://www.dailybruin.com/article/2012/09/ucla-may-lose-additional-state-funds-under-approved-rebenching-budgetary-model

While you are contemplating take-aways that supposedly don’t take away and equalization that will lead to separation, you might like a little musical background: