Best Public Universities for Out-of-State Students

Why not delve deeper into the out of state issue. The UC is particularly adept at making in state residents into out of state residents by decree. I attended the UC as an out of state resident for three years but not out of choice. I was 5th generation Californian and my parent worked at the UC. However for UC purposes, we were both considered out of state residents. Rules and regulations were barred from release. Even to review residency rules required a Freedom of Information Act.

It is not surprising then that that the appeal system is a sham and there is no independent review.

Instead of blindly categorizing out of state students as a tax burden, the issue of residency should be given some fair thought. If you have lived and paid taxes in the state (say for 10 years or more) access to state resources such as the UC should be guaranteed. As it stands, if you cross the border for one day you can be permanently barred from being a resident for tuition purposes. The UC loves this game as it uses its special status in the California constitution to violate 14th amendment law and skirt around otherwise transparent legislative guidelines.

Finally, I see an interesting parallel in intellectual diversity and the low numbers of out of state residents at the UC. While the UC campuses are supposedly “diverse”, these campuses are pure reflections of local constituents---students who are diverse in skin colour but lack any intellectual diversity. This is false diversity. We live in a global society with global competition for highly skilled jobs. California’s parochial attitude to education and its lack of integration with the rest of US and the global job market closely parallels its increasingly poor job environment for college graduates. Ask graduating students who have looked for jobs in California versus NY or DC. Which model serves the student better? Rigorous intellectual and professional curiosity or ersatz diversity in the name of shameless statetism?

Paul of CA 8:50AM December 02, 2009