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Earlier in the year, I wrote about protests at the UC campuses due to the huge increase in student costs. Since then, these protests have died down a lot, but they are still ongoing in small ways at various campuses.

However, coming up next Thursday is an event planned at all campuses: a nationwide strike for public education. I know mass protests will be ongoing at the UC and CSU campuses, but these protests are open to all levels of education across the country.

I’m not entirely sure what to expect on March 4th for California campuses, but I am hoping it will be big and will resonate. I expect students to occupy buildings, as they did earlier in the year, and that will inevitably create a lot of tension. I’m expecting some faculty to join in the protests, and many UC/CSU workers. I expect the chancellors to try hard to scale it down and make them look like victims, as usual. All in all, I expect normal university life to be completely disrupted that day.

I’ll do my best to give an overview of what happened the following day (and continues to happen, since if buildings are occupied it will surely last into the next day).

More information about March 4th can be found here.

Ever since the recent surge of costs for public education in California, there have been precious few signs of relief. Even the protests have died down a lot, and as the new semester/quarter begins, students are being hit with record-high student costs. Many have begun to accept that this is just the way things will have to be.

However, during the protests, one common argument that I heard a lot was that California spends more money on prisons than on higher education. Currently, California spends about 10% of its general fund on prisons and about 6% on the UCs and CSUs.

Luckily, Governor Schwarzenegger announced a proposal that could fix a lot of this: Limit the percentage going towards prisons to a maximum 7%, and set a minimum funding of 10% for the UCs and CSUs. Keep reading »

Things have been a bit slow lately regarding the UC protests, which worries me.

However I did come across this interesting article from Global.org, which puts some nice graphs to the situation to show why students are so upset over the 32% increase.

To summarize, the cut from state funding accounts for only about 3% of the UC’s total budget, which is less than the salaries for the highest paid UC employees.

The article goes on to elaborate on many of the problems of the UC system currently, and why the regents are taking the actions that they have. If you have the time, give it a read — you’ll learn a lot.

In light of the protests in California over the increases in higher costs, I’ve been following Occupy CA, a blog that’s had pretty accurate information from the student’s side of things over these protests.

Anywho, Saturday night Occupy CA posted that the Kerr Hall occupation at UCSC would probably end that night — administrators had hinted at police coming before midnight. I walked up to Kerr Hall to try to see, but nothing much happened during the time I was there. About 40 or 50 students were outside singing songs to pass the time (in addition to students occupying the building). Midnight came and went with no sign of police, so eventually I headed inside.

As it would turn out, the police came around 7 or 8 AM and then forced their way through. Students were ultimately allowed to leave peacefully without arrest, but not all went as well as it could:

Early Sunday morning, Chancellor Blumenthal and Provost Kliger turned the campus into an effective police state by stationing riot police at all entrances to refuse entry to everyone. In a blatant attempt to create a media blackout as they prepared for the police attack, even a Santa Cruz Sentinel photographer was refused access to the campus for some time. (They had already cut cruznet service, the campus wifi system, in the Kerr Hall area.)

At one point during the confrontation, students and neutral faculty observers were cornered by riot police on an outdoor balcony. As the police advanced towards the students and faculty, one faculty member fell from the balcony, injuring his back. He was taken to the hospital by ambulance. The student occupiers are very concerned about the well-being of the faculty member and denounce the administration’s use of force that caused his injury.

The police cleared the entry leading to Kerr Hall by pushing through the outdoor crowd, at times striking students in the chest with their clubs. Upon entering the lobby of Kerr Hall, they issued an ultimatum to students that they could leave peacefully and be arrested one-by-one outside. The students refused this outright. The police backed-off and offered to let the students leave without arrest through a rear entry to Kerr Hall; this offer was accepted immediately by the occupiers, who cleared out of the building at this moment.

Over 75 students have already volunteered to help clean the space in Kerr Hall that was occupied; there are concerns, however, that the University will refuse this offer in order to exaggerate costs associated with the occupation. Source Keep reading »

In light of the 32% increase in UC student fees, protests have erupted on at least four of the UC campuses. While these protests have been peaceful, they haven’t been without incident, and many students have been arrested for occupying buildings.

Personally, I stand for those who protest, and I really hope all of this continues to escalate. Whether or not it will, I cannot say, but I do believe the students and faculty who protest are entirely just. Raising the costs so drastically defeats the purpose public higher education, which is meant to be cheap and accessible. For years, the UC system has been a leveling-ground of sorts, where no matter what financial background you came from, you at least had a shot of becoming something. I believe protests should not only occur on campuses, but also at Sacramento where our state legislature has failed us.

So far, four campuses have running protests on them: UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis, and UC Santa Cruz. Here’s what each campus has been doing: Keep reading »

Hoh boy. I knew this was a likely possibility, but it still hits pretty hard. Today, Mark Yudof and the UC regents have decided to raise student fees by 32% for UC students.

California has been in a pretty big financial crisis due to the recession and other reasons, and the effects have been pretty rough on higher education. Massive cuts have been already made to the UC system, the Cal State (CSU) system, and community colleges statewide. Now, the UC system joins the other two in experiencing giant leaps in costs.

Right now, student fees run about $8,000 for the year — a 32% increase brings that to over $10,000. This, of course, doesn’t include costs of living on campus (or off), which will bring the cost of a year’s schooling to as much as $30,000. Financial aid is given to some, but not to all. Keep reading »

If you’re debating which CSU(s) to apply to, you’re probably curious how selective each one is. As a whole, CSUs are not as selective as UCs and do not vary as much, however there are still differences that you should know when applying.

In general, most CSUs hover between admitting 60% and 80% of their students, with a few exceptions. San Diego State is technically the most selective CSU, admitting only 31% of applicants, but in reality Cal Poly is more selective — the average Cal Poly student had a higher GPA in high school than the average San Diego State student.

Here are the CSUs, ordered by the percent of applicants admitted. For the more selective schools, I added in typical high school GPAs to give some context to the stat. Keep reading »

If you’re planning on applying to a University of California school (a UC), it’s important to know that there is a big difference between how selective they can be. You may know that a UC is more for you than a CSU, but do you know how widely they range in being selective?

Here’s a quick rundown of about how selective each school was, in terms of how many applicants were accepted and about how well the average applicant did in high school. Schools are sorted by how selective they are. All stats are from CollegeBoard.com: Keep reading »