UC enrollment

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What a DC Fly on the Wall Probably Didn’t Hear

UC prez Napolitano attended her former boss’s conference on higher ed in DC last week.  From the LA Times: Obama encourages economic diversity in higher education:  The president and first lady are joined at a White House summit by others who have made commitments to help increase college accessibility for low-income students. California schools are well represented. More than 100 colleges and universities, including several in California, promised Thursday to try to attract more low-income students by strengthening relationships with high schools and community colleges, increasing access to advisors and offering more remedial programs… Each of the nine University of…

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Let Me In, Please

Apparently, freshman applications to UC are up significantly, especially to UCLA: …Once again, UCLA was the most popular choice in the system, garnering 86,472 freshman applications, up 7.5% from last year; next was UC Berkeley, 73,711; up 8.9%. San Diego was third with 73,437; Santa Barbara received 66,756; Irvine; 66,426; Davis, 60,496; Santa Cruz, 40,687; Riverside, 34,899; and Merced, 15,264… Latinos made up the largest share of UC frosh applicants who are California residents:  32.7%.  Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders made up 31.7% of that group; whites, 26.2%; African Americans, 5.9%. Full story at http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-uc-applicants-20140117,0,3710326.story

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LAO Puts Higher Ed in the Freezer

The Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) released its budget outlook for the coming year and the next few years.  Good cheer generally, except for higher ed.  Revenue is up more than projected.  (Recall the governor insisted on “conservative” forecasts last June.)  Spending is up, too, but the net points to a rising state reserve.  Indeed, the LAO simulated a mild recession and thinks we could pull through without another calamity. However, when in comes to spending on higher ed, UC is frozen at $2.8 billion indefinitely.  No adjustments for inflation and enrollment growth (which LAO doesn’t think will happen based on…

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Tilt!

Inside Higher Ed today runs a lengthy piece on a journal article concerning responses of whites to UC admissions criteria.  Specifically, whites in California are less likely to favor objective measures such as test scores for admission – criteria seemingly free of bias and identified as meritocratic – when it is pointed out that Asians do particularly well on such criteria.  Whites “primed” with the Asian performance results then tilt toward using fuzzier concepts such as “leadership” as criteria for admissions. You can find the piece at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/13/white-definitions-merit-and-admissions-change-when-they-think-about-asian-americans. The underlying journal article is at http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/670664. Which only goes to show:

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Acountability Report to Regents: Data Source

At the July Regents meeting, there will be consideration of the “Accountability Report.”  While this report tends to be a booster publication, it contains interesting information on budgets, enrollment, etc.  For example, the impact of the Great Recession and its budgetary aftermath can be seen on the chart above from the report.  Nonresident undergrads – who pay full tuition – were increased as a percent of total enrollees.  (Clicking on the chart will enlarge it and show more detail.) The Accountability Report is at http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/jul13/l1attach.pdf.

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Follow Up on Affirmative Action

Yesterday, we posted an entry about Prop 209 admissions data in preparation for the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action in university admissions.  Now that the decision is out, the media reports generally say it will have little effect.  Since California has Prop 209 restrictions in place already, it is assumed that there will be zero effect in California.  Your non-legal expert is unsure that zero is the right number.  As noted yesterday, the decision had the potential to affect private universities – due to their acceptance of federal funding – and public ones outside California.  Suppose it turns…

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Prop 209 Data

Prop 209, approved by voters in 1996, banned affirmative action in university admissions and public contracting.  It followed an earlier move in 1995 by the Regents to ban affirmative action and, in fact, made their decision redundant.  (They later revoked the decision, an action that had no effect once Prop 209 was enacted.)  The Contra Costa Times has a retrospective article on the subject because of the pending U.S. Supreme Court decision on affirmative action that could extend to private as well as public universities since the former accept federal funding.  The chart above comes from that article and focuses…

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California Assembly Speaker John Pérez on the UC Budget, Tuition, Access, and Other Matters

At the January 17, 2013 UC Regents meeting John Pérez spoke about the state budget and other issues. Pérez is an ex officio regent.  A summary follows and there is a link to an audio of his remarks at the bottom of this post: Summary: UC is unrealistic about increased funding from the state, backfilling of past budget cuts, or predictability for the university.  It is not addressing predictability for students.  UC was good at protecting the neediest students but not so good at protecting the middle class.  There are legislative concerns about graduate and professional school students, not just…

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The Regents meet next week (Nov. 13-15)

The Regents in 1923 Various budgetary items are on the agenda but, of course, the Regents will not have to discuss how to deal with budgetary trigger cuts since Prop 30 passed.  The proposed budget for next year includes $2.4 million from the state to support “core” educational programs.  The total core budget, however, is $6.2 million with most of the gap coming from tuition and fees.  See: http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/nov12/f1attach1.pdf Other highlights: Various professional school tuition increases are also planned: http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/nov12/f3.pdf There will be discussion of the plan to raise out-of-state enrollment to 10%: http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/nov12/e2.pdf When the news media get a…

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Robert Anderson’s Presentation on the Future of UC Funding (With Slides)

Robert Anderson The prior post on this blog carried the audio (only) of the forum sponsored by the Faculty Association at UCLA on the Future of University of California Funding held November 7, 2012 at the UCLA Faculty Center.Each of the three presenters used slides as part of their talks.  Below you will find two (alternative) links to the slides used by Prof. Robert Anderson along with the coordinated audio for his presentation.  Use whichever works best for your connection.