UC applications in limbo during Brown-Napolitano standoff

By Lisa Leff and Katy Murphy, Associated Press and Bay Area News Group

SAN FRANCISCO >> University of California admissions officers are sifting through a record number of applications, but they have no idea how many new students they can enroll.

The uncertainty stems from the very public clash between university President Janet Napolitano and Gov. Jerry Brown over the state’s role in underwriting the cost of a UC education for qualified Californians.

Arguing that Sacramento has failed to fulfill its fiscal obligations, Napolitano plans to raise tuition 5 percent this fall. Brown has threatened to withhold about $120 million in state funds unless the university keeps tuition and nonresident enrollment flat.

Their competing visions — along with other plans of top lawmakers — have thrown off the tenuous mechanics of the admissions cycle. “Campuses are in a really tough position,” said system spokeswoman Dianne Klein. “We don’t have a state budget, so we don’t know what the state will provide to the university, and at the same time we have a responsibility to reply to applicants. How is that going to translate? Is it going to be admitting fewer students? Is it going to be putting more students on the wait list … ?”

The majority of California voters are siding with Brown, according to the results of a USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll released over the weekend. About 57 percent of those surveyed said UC needs to do more with the money it has — an argument Brown has made for years.

“Gov. Brown clearly is negotiating from a position of power on this issue,” said Drew Lieberman, vice president of Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, in a Monday news conference.

In fact, 53 percent of those polled rejected fee hikes for California students, even if it meant less room for in-state applicants, whose chances of admission have steadily declined at many campuses amid the rising number of applications. The poll’s margin of error was 2.7 percentage points, so the split on that question could be roughly 50-50.

That California voters oppose a tuition increase isn’t surprising, Klein said Monday. “The university itself doesn’t like this option, “ she said.

Another flash point in budget negotiations is the university’s rapidly growing out-of-state undergraduate enrollment. Between 2008 and this year, the share of students from other states and countries more than doubled, while in-state enrollment grew by about 1 percent.

Out-of-state students pay nearly $23,000 per year, in addition to the in-state tuition of roughly $12,200, generating $640 million for the system this year.

At UC Berkeley and UCLA, out-of-state and international students make up about one in five undergraduates. They account for one in seven at UC San Diego and nearly one in 10 at the Davis, Irvine and Santa Barbara campuses. Officials insist they would happily serve more students from California if the state gave them more money, and they point out that UCLA and UC Berkeley have far fewer nonresident students than public colleges such as the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia.

They also say the out-of-state tuition has allowed them to offer more classes and maintain programs benefiting all students — and that, contrary to popular belief, cutting out-of-state enrollment might actually reduce the number of California students the system can afford to educate.

Those assurances have done little to convince residents that their children are not being frozen out of an affordable, quality education close to home — a belief that has students heading out of California for less crowded colleges that are easier to get into, said Peggy Hock, president of the Western Association for College Admission Counseling.

State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon and Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, both Democrats like Brown and Napolitano, have proposed raising the tuition surcharge on nonresidents by $4,000 and $5,000, respectively, next year to stave off tuition increases for Californians and increase the seats available to them.

Fabienne Roth, a UCLA junior from Switzerland who is active in student government, said students like her have become a convenient target.

“I’ve definitely been told, ‘Why are you studying here? Go home,’ “ Roth said. “They are putting nonresidents against residents, and what is frustrating is it doesn’t fundamentally solve the issue of funding UC. It’s just an easy way out.”

[Source]: Santa Cruz Sentinel