Hole in the Middle of UC Admissions?

Middle income student attendance declines at UC

Samantha Schaefer, 2011-10-30 Orange County Register

Over the past 10 years, the proportion of middle-income students attending the University of California has declined at nearly twice the rate of California middle-income households, while the share of lower- and upper-income UC students has risen. Some analysts suggest the trend stems from repeated hikes in UC tuition costs, coupled with limited access to many kinds of aid for middle-income students, who are increasingly incurring larger and larger loan debt. “We’ve got some significant problems here,” said William Tierney, USC Rossier School of Education professor, Wilbur-Kieffer professor of higher education and director of Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis. “Tuition is rising faster than people can keep up with it because family salaries are not rising as fast. … It’s not simply that there are more people out of work and can’t find jobs, but people’s salaries are staying flat.”

UC officials say they believe the trend mostly stems from a shift in California’s overall demographic, perhaps magnified because the population of UC-eligible students is uneven across income brackets…

Over the past 10 years, the UC has seen a 9 percent decrease in the proportion of middle-income students, while the proportions of lower- and higher-income students have grown by equal shares, according to the university’s 2011 Accountability Report. Most of decrease came for upper middle income families earning $99,000 to $149,000 – 6 percent – with students from families earning $55,000 to $99,000 declining by 3 percent. But the declines don’t align precisely with the fee increases.

The UC tracks the proportion of students from different income levels every year. During the recession in the early 1990s, low-income families increased in California as well as at the UC, the accountability report states. But the decline in middle-income students has continued even in years when there were no tuition hikes…

Full article at http://www.ocregister.com/news/students-324545-income-aid.html

The 2011 UC Accountability Report – from which the news account above is taken and the table below is extracted – is at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/accountability/documents/accountabilityreport11.pdf