(SACRAMENTO, CA) Assemblymember Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), Chair of the Assembly Budget Committee, issued the following statement in response to the findings of an independent state audit that concluded the University of California disadvantaged California students in its admissions and financial decisions. Ting’s statement follows.
“I am a proud Cal graduate, which makes today’s news extremely sad. This audit confirms my worst suspicions about how the University of California has been managed. It is shocking to see how undervalued resident students are being treated by an institution created to educate them. Also troubling is the huge cloud over the credibility of university leadership who has intentionally kept the Legislature in the dark. We have long sought answers about university practices impacting California students and it’s now clear that we have been either snowballed or misled. Despite today’s news, one thing is very clear. Lawmakers are even more committed to see big changes at the University of California that get more residents enrolled, particularly at campuses like Cal, UCLA and UCSD where they were most excluded.”
A copy of the audit is available at https://www.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2015-107.pdf. Key findings follow.
- While UC claims that the state funding shortfalls forced it to seek alternative funding, such as increasing the number of nonresident admissions and increasing resident tuition, it did not first sufficiently reduce its costs.
- Over the last 10 years, despite a 52% increase in resident applicants, UC resident enrollment increased by only 10% while nonresident enrollment increased 432%.
- The UC lowered the admission standard for nonresidents and admitted nearly 16,000 nonresidents over the past three years with lower academic scores than the upper half of admitted residents.
- Admitted residents were increasingly denied their campus of choice, yet admitted nonresidents were always admitted to one of their campuses of choice.
- Increased nonresident enrollment has hindered efforts to enroll more underrepresented minorities.