In anticipation of further cuts in state funding, University of California officials are debating the possibility of increasing out-of-state and international student enrollment to help fill the gap in revenue.
Less than 10 percent of the 220,000 undergraduates and graduates currently enrolled in the UC system are from out of state. However, according to the U.S. Department of Education, roughly 16 percent of students enrolled in public four-year colleges and universities nationwide are from other states and countries.
Tuition for in-state students at UC campuses falls at an estimated $8,100 per student, while out-of-state students pay more than $28,000. Only about half the extra $20,000 is used to cover the university’s costs, UC officials said in a statement.
‘It might generate some revenue,’ UC spokesman Ricardo Vazquez said. ‘But I wouldn’t call it profit, and I don’t know the amount.’
Though boosting out-of-state and international admission rates may help the public university system cushion funding cuts, officials opposed to the idea argue that it could filter out qualified local applicants.
‘When we start chasing that money as a substitute for state money, that’s bad public policy,’ UC Regent and Lt. Gov. John Garamendi said in a statement.
Vazquez said California-resident enrollment is unaffected by out-of-state admissions because enrollment targets and local-applicant admission are based on state funding. He added that the university has no established quotas regarding out-of-state and international student acceptance rates.
UC Regent Judith Hopkinson recently asked the university’s governing board to consider increasing out-of-state and international enrollment, citing not only its financial benefits but also the social advantages of creating a more geographically diverse student body.
Hopkinson said enrolling between 15 percent to 20 percent of nonresident undergraduates will benefit the university financially in the long run.
The UC system has a revenue target equivalent to about 17,800 students ‘mdash; including those from out of state and country ‘mdash; for both undergraduate and graduate programs, and although the university will come close to meeting its goal this year, it has fallen short of that target by over 1,000 students for the past four years, according to Vazquez.
Additionally, out-of-state applicants are held to higher admission standards, such as greater GPA and SAT score requirements, which can help raise the university’s national rankings.
‘Our main mission has always been serving California high school graduates,’ Vazquez said. ‘We have a guarantee for California residents that we don’t have for out-of-state students.’
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