UCs are not as they seem

The Universities of California are sought-after, dream schools for students worldwide. Academically competitive, centrally located, beautiful, and prestigious, they garner record applications each year. But they aren’t all they seem. The UC system received 249,855 applications for the 2021 school year, up 16.1% from 2020, according to the UC Graduate, Undergraduate, and Equity Affairs. It’s clear where this leads: to record numbers of rejections. But student populations are rising as well. So much so that the universities can no longer accommodate them.

Schools like UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) and UC Berkeley went into overflow in past years, and the trend has continued. Students had to be moved into hotels instead of dorms. These hotels are off-campus and far, without dependable transportation services.

There isn’t even enough space for freshmen on campus, let alone sophomores and upperclassmen. And housing in cities like Isla Vista, Calif., isn’t cheap. Many students cannot afford to rent there, and with the precautions of the pandemic, housing has become more limited.

According to Gurleen Pabla, vice-chair of Isla Vista Tenants Union, there are only 10 students in a house on average, compared to 16 in previous years. As a result, rent increases, and housing itself becomes harder to find. Other schools, like UC Berkeley, are no different.

OPINION: UCs ARE NOT AS THEY SEEM

Before classes began in 2021, nearly 5,000 student applications for housing at UC Berkeley were unable to be accommodated, according to a spokesperson. Additionally, housing prices continue to rise, and availability just gets lower in these populated college towns, especially when they overlap with a major city.

Many of the UCs are taking measures to fix this. Building new dorms is the first resort. UCSB, in particular, has plans to build a new “megadorm.” Charlie Munger, a 97-year-old billionaire, is only financing the new hall if it follows his design, one that structures the building into apartments of eight single occupancy rooms. And in the entire building, 94% of those rooms will be windowless. But not to worry, the hall has plenty of room for surfboard storage!

The school is hopelessly out of touch with what students actually need. Students have taken to social media to protest, comparing the building to prison cells, but the school plans to press on with its design.

UCSB isn’t unique in its new dorm construction. UC Berkeley is also attempting to build additional dorms to support its influx of students, as are UC Davis and UC San Diego.

Still, housing isn’t the only thing impacted by overpopulation. Admitted students struggle to enroll in classes — classes they need to graduate, classes they need for their major, and classes to just fill their schedule and fulfill the mandated number of credit hours necessary to be considered a full-time student.

Getting classes at any college can be a pain. We know this. Students race to avoid 8 a.m. lectures and scour Rate My Professor before meeting with advisors. But the UC system is especially bad.

The schools are understaffed. There aren’t enough professors to handle all the students attending, even while holding lectures with hundreds of students. Just filling credit hours is difficult, and adding in need for major-specific classes is next to impossible. But instead of allocating more resources to increased staff and classes, UCs are looking into cutting requirements for degrees and pushing some majors to be completed in less than four years. Or looking to treat summer classes as equivalent to a full quarter or one semester classes, rather than the pay-by-the-unit way they are now.

This difficulty in getting classes only exacerbates the shrinking graduation rates. Students cannot enroll in the classes they need and have to push their graduation date. Not only is that a major inconvenience, but also a huge financial burden. The student now has to pay for the extra semester, the extra year. They lose months when they might have been working a full-time job.

And yes, graduating “on time” is a myth and one we should dismantle. But that doesn’t change the reality of being unable to graduate in four years because of the school itself, rather than a student’s own pace. Students who plan to graduate in four years or fewer are now forced to remain longer in their expensive college towns to take just one or two classes that they should have been able to complete in the years before.

This adds up, especially when the public universities aren’t all that cheap in the first place. UCs cost 9.52% more than the nationwide average for a public four-year institution, according to Education Date Initiative. For the 20192020 school year, UC Berkeley’s final instate undergraduate cost with room and board factored in was $39,550. UCSB’s was over $36,000. UC Merced and UC Davis were both about $38,000. There is a huge gap compared to a school like the University of Florida, a public land-grant research university that costs $21,430.

The UCs are expensive, even for in-state residents. So much so that it is not uncommon for students to go out of state and pay similar tuition. Financial aid can bridge the gap and bring costs at schools outside of California to the same level or even cheaper.

Paying nearly $40,000 for a public education in-state is far from typical. And to pay that much to not even be guaranteed campus housing or necessary classes is highway robbery.

The UCs are incredible schools — I am not here to refute that. The issue comes in when their faults are glossed over. Schools are more than location and prestige, and their actions speak loudest.

So when you’re committing to a school, just remember: you can’t see the beach if you don’t have a window.