The UC Sell-Out of Would-Be California STEM Students
The University of California appears to be more interested in making money off out-of-state and foreign students than serving qualified and well-rounded in-state students, especially in the STEM fields.
A 21-year old boy named Mitchel was just denied his “Transfer Admission Guarantee” to UC Santa Cruz in the Computer Science Department, after he was denied freshman UC admission 4 years ago. Apparently, the UCSC CS is “heavily impacted”, so they were denying the “Guarantees” at a late date, due to minor technicalities, stranding kids like Mitch, who have committed to UCSC specific classes at JCs, in effect stranding them. Mitchell has a 3.6 GPA in Computer Science at a JC, and will have taken all the UC specific CS required courses by the end of this semester. He is an Eagle Scout, played four years of High School Football and Track, and was the Captain of the Track Team. Life dealt him a cruel blow in 8th grade, when his mother died of cancer, and yet not to be deterred, Mitchel became an excellent student, worked several part-time jobs, and learned Spanish and French. He is 25% Hispanic, but that’s beside the point. He is third generation Californian, and the first of his family to not attend UC. He is an example of how UC is stifling STEM students in our State, and pandering to out-of-state and foreign students for money. (Palomino,2015)
We are lifelong Democrats, and supporters of public education. We ordinarily defend the UCs, and are UC products ourselves. What concerns us is the decline in UC output, as well-rounded native born kids who should be directed towards STEM educations, are losing out to the foreign-born, who game the system and are disproportionally represented. The main reason for this is that UC needs the money, while complaining that State taxpayers do not pay enough.
For the record, here are the UC/CSU College admission “diversity” statistics (2017–2018), compared with high schools and the rest of the nation:
Clearly, although California has a high Asian and Hispanic population relative to the rest of the nation, UC is becoming an Asian/Hispanic college “factory” that also graduates a disproportionate share of foreign Asians. The numbers seem fair for Hispanics (if they are duly qualified), but one wonders if the foreign Asian community, and foreign-born CA resident Asians are “gaming” the CA college system (stacking the Board of Regents, gaming test scores, diminishing the value of sports/extracurriculars to boost their own numbers). It used to be said that “any black or Hispanic UC admit was at the expense of an Asian admit”, and Asian UC Regents in fact helped Ward Connerly reverse CA Affirmative Action in 1996. Ivy League Colleges have been known to use preferential treatment in admits of rich white kids, and college admission standards have been debated endlessly. However, the point remains, shouldn’t native-borns (regardless of race) with well-rounded skills (grades, extracurriculars, sports, high needs, especially STEMs) have preference? (McGurn,2020),(Jaschik,2018)
In the “affirmative action” years (approximately 1970 to 1996), UC education underwent a profound change. There was societal pressure on UCs to educate more women and minorities, who basically made a headlong rush to the prestige degrees, such as Medicine and Law. Meanwhile, tech degrees were flooded with the foreign-born, as H1B visa requirements became lax as businesses were supposedly not getting enough STEM workers from the native-born ranks. I suspect that there are a combination of factors at work:
1) H1Bs are desirable tech hires, as they are essentially “At Will” (they only marginally vest in long-term benefits, as their stay in our country is temporary). This is in contrast to the native-born, who “vest” in benefits much more easily, making their medical, retirement, and disability benefits more potentially costly to a company, while making them more likely to unionize and harder to fire.
2) The foreign-born, having learned of this market, started doing whatever it took to attend U.S. colleges, especially those in California that were relatively cheap and close to robust tech job markets. In the 70s and 80s, many from Iran and Taiwan began attending UC science and engineering programs, while more recently East Indians and mainland Chinese have been crashing UC STEM. Philippine women have famously filled up demand for nurses. Since Affirmative Action filled some of the professional slots, the rest of the native born seem to have filled up the State colleges and JCs, getting more liberal arts and tech degrees, and less STEM degrees. Perhaps with this competition (and frankly a kind of favoritism), the native-born began to feel that they were “bad at math”, but I have to believe California kids can ultimately compete with anyone in STEM, if given the chance.
3) UC in turn, began to realize that the foreign born were a big money-maker. The “out of state” tuition, which is more or less double that of in-state, became the admission ticket for foreign STEM workers who were happy to pay this relatively cheap price (about the same as prestigious private school tuition), to eventually gain employment in our Country. UC in turn got fat, raising professor’s and administrator’s salaries, while gaining cheap labor in the form of grad students and post-docs. Soon, UC couldn’t get off the foreign-born admittance “drug”, hiding it as “out-of-state” admissions that were “qualified”, when the foreign-born were gaming the system big-time (force feeding math and science to their kids, sometime cheating on SATs, faking community service, and who-knows-what-else). We’ve also learned from recent UC admissions scandals that those with enough money and connections from anywhere can get their kids admitted (right, Lori Loughlin?). The UC California meritocracy that lasted up until the 60s (or counting affirmative-action boosts until the 90s) is now gone and UC now mimics a private commercial operation.
4) True, a percentage of the foreign-born are an internationally sought-after commodity, as many are talented and welcome additions to our economy. But a percentage (I would estimate about 30%) are actually not that talented, and a kind of drag on our economy, as they are either scamming or incompetent (there are document falsifications and entries into civil-service protected jobs where the lesser lights can hide). Others are here to steal critical tech information for their home countries, or hack our computer systems (are you listening, China?) We should do a better job of vetting foreign-born candidates, and increase their UC tuitions while remembering that as long as Californians pay taxes, UC should endeavor to educate Californians. (Green,2017),(Khalid,2017)
5) Some may call me “racist” for saying this, but I think its factual and bore out by history. Let’s say the year is 1931, and our universities are admitting many Japanese and German students, and tech markets are hiring them because they are “more qualified” than our native-born STEMs (in truth, their governments were “gaming” our system to help them steal information and prepare them for a war against us). Fortunately, we educated enough native-born “student-athletes” who were loyal and later became the pilots and commanders that won WW II, and later became the engineers, doctors and scientists of the “greatest generation” (financed largely by the GI Bill). We need to recognize these patterns and make the necessary corrections!
In conclusion, there should be a continuing effort in California to prepare STEM students in Jr High and High School by boosting Math and Science. But California STEM colleges and employers need to also commit to hiring California citizens (who are also much more likely to be loyal to our Country’s values). Perhaps there should be quotas, given the amount of tax dollars we commit to colleges and businesses (yes businesses, we pay a lot of tax dollars to create a friendly business climate here, and you need to act accordingly). I’m not immigrant fear-mongering here, I’m just saying fair is fair, as what good will it do us if our children have to move out of state to attend college and get a good job. (Heriot,2013)
