A tale of two Bay Area Schools

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Re: A tale of two Bay Area Schools - Treebound - 02-29-2016

CT,
I know a few large donors to UCB and they have been attempting to persuade their undergraduate alums to give to the university over the last 5-10 years and have made "very poor progress."Â One of them sits on a task force looking at this very issue of alumni participation in giving.Â They see that Stanford has created a culture of giving back amongst its alums and that participation is key.Â Â This focus on participation (at any level) has been embraced by the local public school districts (aka "Basic Aid Districts") where state funding is capped and the Foundations and PTOs now raise substantial portions of the budget for local elementary and secondary schools.Â I'm guessing you live in CT, where many of those school districts are viewed as "best practices" examples for states like CA.Â

While I agree that "Knight level" giving can bias results, creating a culture of giving back to your undergrad, especially a public university like UCB, is the new reality and sets a foundation for future giving.Â The decline in programs and resources here in CA is real and it is dragging down a once great university system.Â As a UC degree holder (grad) and native Californian, that saddens me.Â Many well qualified HS students in my son's high school graduating class last year rejected their offers from various UC's as they were legitimately concerned about being able to take the classes they needed to complete their degree in 4 years.Â Â That trend is clearly not a positive as they missed out on some great kids.

Re: A tale of two Bay Area Schools - 82lsju - 02-29-2016

(02-29-2016, 10:24 AM)Treebound link Wrote:CT,
I know a few large donors to UCB and they have been attempting to persuade their undergraduate alums to give to the university over the last 5-10 years and have made "very poor progress."Â One of them sits on a task force looking at this very issue of alumni participation in giving.Â They see that Stanford has created a culture of giving back amongst its alums and that participation is key.Â Â

I think that one thing Stanford does well is getting people to donate soon after graduation, this creates a "habit of giving".Â Trying to create this habit later can be a daunting task.Â My undergrad degree is in Chemical Engineering and for the most part Chemical Engineering undergrads have a much weaker connection to the department than to the University at large.Â The department has been trying to re-engage with undergrad alums with little success, I think they would be better served working on establishing that engagement with current students and very recent alums and not devote much effort to those who have been gone 20+ years and have had little engagement during those years as I doubt they will have much success re-engaging.

I look at how much better Stanford does with alumni engagement and fund raising than UCLA (where I got my MBA), it is night and day comparing the two.

Re: A tale of two Bay Area Schools - TreesAndBirds - 02-29-2016

As it is now students make one of the largest economic decisions they will ever make ( whether/where to go to college, whether to borrow money, what to major in) at the age of 17/18. Without good guidance from parents or elsewhere, many students will make poor decisions.

Although it has been getting better, schools in general provide limited info on job prospects/salary by major to help students make decisions. Not that this is the only factor, but it sure needs to be understood.

We need to look at more than getting kids the money to pay tuition, we need to discuss how to reduce the cost of college.Â I would start with much better use of technology (eg, cant the UC system share profs who teach large lecture classes by having one prof teach a class for the whole UC system by streaming video?), or is the tenure the problem ( where universities cant reduce the number of profs , as happens in other industries, so students are stuck with higher tuition)?

If society is paying for tuition, should society get a say in how it is spent......should grades and/or major factor in?

If we go to the no debt/pay later model, should private industry be encouraged to participate together with govt? They will fund some tuition for a percent of future income. Of course they will likely focus on best prospects.....might be harder for the less capable students or less lucrative majors, but maybe govt/more charitable type orgs step up to fund the less lucrative majors. As for the less capable students, maybe this will force us to develop a better vocational educ system, rather than assuming that a typical college educ is best for most everyone.

Of course it would be preferable if all schools were like Stanford/Ivies with committed donor bases, but we cant depend on that. If we dont make sure kids can get a good educ I dont see how we address growing income disparity, which we must address.

Re: A tale of two Bay Area Schools - terry - 02-29-2016

UCBerkeley's alumni donor rate was around 13% last year. I don't think that number has changed much in a number of years, despite UCBerkeley's efforts.

For Stanford and most of the Ivies, the alumni donor percentage typically is in the 35% to 40% range, as I recall (with Princeton and Dartmouth higher).

Re: A tale of two Bay Area Schools - Rally - 02-29-2016

(02-29-2016, 10:52 AM)TreesAndBirds link Wrote:As it is now students make one of the largest economic decisions they will ever make ( whether/where to go to college, whether to borrow money, what to major in) at the age of 17/18. Without good guidance from parents or elsewhere, many students will make poor decisions.

Although it has been getting better, schools in general provide limited info on job prospects/salary by major to help students make decisions. Not that this is the only factor, but it sure needs to be understood.

We need to look at more than getting kids the money to pay tuition, we need to discuss how to reduce the cost of college.Â I would start with much better use of technology (eg, cant the UC system share profs who teach large lecture classes by having one prof teach a class for the whole UC system by streaming video?), or is the tenure the problem ( where universities cant reduce the number of profs , as happens in other industries, so students are stuck with higher tuition)?

If society is paying for tuition, should society get a say in how it is spent......should grades and/or major factor in?

If we go to the no debt/pay later model, should private industry be encouraged to participate together with govt? They will fund some tuition for a percent of future income. Of course they will likely focus on best prospects.....might be harder for the less capable students or less lucrative majors, but maybe govt/more charitable type orgs step up to fund the less lucrative majors. As for the less capable students, maybe this will force us to develop a better vocational educ system, rather than assuming that a typical college educ is best for most everyone.

Of course it would be preferable if all schools were like Stanford/Ivies with committed donor bases, but we cant depend on that. If we dont make sure kids can get a good educ I dont see how we address growing income disparity, which we must address.

Interesting choices:Â would I rather make loan payments for a very long time, or be partially indentured to a corporation my entire adult life?Â How about we follow the Greece model?Â Everything is free for everyone, until we eventually run out of everyone's money then enjoy riots because everything isn't free any more.Â

Re: A tale of two Bay Area Schools - 2006alum - 02-29-2016

(02-29-2016, 02:11 PM)ferrari link Wrote:Interesting choices:Â would I rather make loan payments for a very long time, or be partially indentured to a corporation my entire adult life?Â How about we follow the Greece model?Â Some might call it the Sanders model?Â Everything is free for everyone, until we eventually run out of everyone's money then enjoy riots because everything isn't free any more.

Can I make a humble request that we strike all allusions to candidates and 2016 election stuff? Clearly this thread and others related to the policies of funding for higher education overlap with 2016 politics, but I find almost every thread on this board goes south real fast once we start throwing out potshots at candidates and/or left/right positions. Thanks!

Re: A tale of two Bay Area Schools - Rally - 02-29-2016

(02-29-2016, 03:20 PM)2006alum link Wrote:[quote author=ferrari link=topic=14656.msg157482#msg157482 date=1456780290]
Interesting choices:Â would I rather make loan payments for a very long time, or be partially indentured to a corporation my entire adult life?Â How about we follow the Greece model. Everything is free for everyone, until we eventually run out of everyone's money then enjoy riots because everything isn't free any more.

Re: A tale of two Bay Area Schools - fullmetal - 02-29-2016

There's a bit of sink-or-swim at Stanford too.Â Neither school is for the faint of heart or weak of will.

Re: A tale of two Bay Area Schools - Extra Point - 02-29-2016

(02-29-2016, 04:19 PM)fullmetal link Wrote:There's a bit of sink-or-swim at Stanford too.Â Neither school is for the faint of heart or weak of will.

Have you ever been in a class where half of the students flunked? I have!

Re: A tale of two Bay Area Schools - Rally - 02-29-2016

(02-29-2016, 04:28 PM)Extra Point link Wrote:[quote author=fullmetal link=topic=14656.msg157494#msg157494 date=1456787955]
There's a bit of sink-or-swim at Stanford too.Â Neither school is for the faint of heart or weak of will.

Have you ever been in a class where half of the students flunked? I have!
[/quote]

Sounds like a very poor instructor to me, either in his/her teaching method, establishment of prereqs or both.

Re: A tale of two Bay Area Schools - fullmetal - 02-29-2016

All those may or may not be true...but there are no asterisks on your transcript.

Re: A tale of two Bay Area Schools - Extra Point - 02-29-2016

(02-29-2016, 04:32 PM)ferrari link Wrote:[quote author=Extra Point link=topic=14656.msg157497#msg157497 date=1456788482]
[quote author=fullmetal link=topic=14656.msg157494#msg157494 date=1456787955]
There's a bit of sink-or-swim at Stanford too.Â Neither school is for the faint of heart or weak of will.

Have you ever been in a class where half of the students flunked? I have!
[/quote]

Sounds like a very poor instructor to me, either in his/her teaching method, establishment of prereqs or both.
[/quote]

The classes are called "weed outs" and they are common at state institutions where they admit pretty much everyone. Doesn't matter who teaches these classes or who enrolls in them. The grading curves are designed to reduce the student body to the number they intend to graduate. Weed outs are generally required during the sophomore and junior year. They don't want to flunk students until they've had a chance to get donations out of their parents.

Re: A tale of two Bay Area Schools - Mick - 02-29-2016

(02-29-2016, 06:42 AM)CTcard link Wrote:[quote author=Treebound link=topic=14656.msg157433#msg157433 date=1456726264]
Why UCB undergrads have not given more to their alma mater is just sad and concerning.Â ...Â Too many bare alums from this area believe that state funded education is their birth right.Â That model doesn't hold anymore at any level.Â Â Â

Let's not get carried away and pretend this is somehow a particular problem of Berkley and their alums, or the UC system.

These things vary a lot year by year, as they are heavily dependent on a few super-donations (like Mr. Knight's), but in 2015, among public universities, UCB was #5 in the nation in private fund raising*, #20 overall.
The top publics:
1. UCSF **
2. UCLA
3. UW
4. Michigan
5. Berkeley

The amount raised is dwarfed by Stanford and Harvard, and of course ucb is a far larger enterprise so their per capita is far lower, but it's not as if they simply don't raise private money.

This comes from a report by the Council for Aid to Education.
http://cae.org/images/uploads/pdf/VSE_2015_Press_Release.pdf

*Alumni contributions are a little under 30% of the pie they are talking about in this report, and individual giving ony about 50%. How the pie breaks down for UCB versus the others isn't clear.

** UCSF says that only 3% of their revenue comes from the state. They are a special case as they are only a grad school - mostly a med school. Thus their income from grants is a particularly high fraction and they don't have vast teaching costs. Grouping them in with UCLA, UW, Michigan, and UCB thus seems odd, though it does point out another issue. Among the schools listed here, UCB is unique in not having a med school, which tends to drive a lot of charitable giving.
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2016/01/401486/ucsf-tops-public-universities-fundraising-2015
[/quote]

Here's the chart from 2014.Â

Top Fund-Raisers in 2014

Institution Raised in 2014

1. Harvard U. $1.16 billion
2. Stanford U. $929 million
3. U. of Southern California $732 million
4. Northwestern U. $616 million
5. Johns Hopkins U. $615 million
6. Cornell U. $546 million
7. U. of Texas at Austin $529 million
8. U. of Pennsylvania $484 million
9. U. of Washington $478 million
10. Columbia U. $470 million
11. New York U. $456 million
12. U. of California at San Francisco $445 million
13. Duke U. $437 million
14. U. of Michigan $433 million
15. Yale U. $430.31 million
16. U. of California at Los Angeles $430.28 million
17. U. of Chicago $405 million
18. U of California at Berkeley $390 million
19. Massachusetts Institute of Technology $375 million
20. Indiana U. $341 million

Cal was #18 in the country, ahead of MIT, behind UofC and UCLA, in shouting distance of Yale.Â Not bad company.

Re: A tale of two Bay Area Schools - BostonCard - 02-29-2016

(02-29-2016, 06:42 AM)CTcard link Wrote:Let's not get carried away and pretend this is somehow a particular problem of Berkley and their alums, or the UC system.

These things vary a lot year by year, as they are heavily dependent on a few super-donations (like Mr. Knight's), but in 2015, among public universities, UCB was #5 in the nation in private fund raising*, #20 overall.
The top publics:
1. UCSF **
2. UCLA
3. UW
4. Michigan
5. Berkeley

** UCSF says that only 3% of their revenue comes from the state. They are a special case as they are only a grad school - mostly a med school. Thus their income from grants is a particularly high fraction and they don't have vast teaching costs. Grouping them in with UCLA, UW, Michigan, and UCB thus seems odd, though it does point out another issue. Among the schools listed here, UCB is unique in not having a med school, which tends to drive a lot of charitable giving.

Also, UCSF opened a brand new hospital in 2015, and has been building out its Mission Bay Campus.Â That has offered lots of people the opportunity to put their names on buildings.Â See, for example, this gift from last Feb: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2015/02/123366/ucsf-receives-100m-gift-advance-health-sciences-mission.

BC

Re: A tale of two Bay Area Schools - fullmetal - 02-29-2016

(02-29-2016, 04:28 PM)Extra Point link Wrote:[quote author=fullmetal link=topic=14656.msg157494#msg157494 date=1456787955]
There's a bit of sink-or-swim at Stanford too.Â Neither school is for the faint of heart or weak of will.

Have you ever been in a class where half of the students flunked? I have!
[/quote]

I suspect I have as well, though no one was blase enough to admit that they had flunked to the rest of the class...

Re: A tale of two Bay Area Schools - 82lsju - 03-01-2016

(02-29-2016, 04:28 PM)Extra Point link Wrote:[quote author=fullmetal link=topic=14656.msg157494#msg157494 date=1456787955]
There's a bit of sink-or-swim at Stanford too.Â Neither school is for the faint of heart or weak of will.

Have you ever been in a class where half of the students flunked? I have!
[/quote]

one Chemical Engineering class of mine, ~30 students, on the mid-term, the mode was zero and the mean was ~30.Â I had the 8th highest final grade in the class (a C+) and was pleased as punch to get that.

The same professor had taught the same class a couple of years earlier and his preliminary final grades flunked about half the class.Â This was a required senior year class that was offered once a year (winter quarter) so theoretically all the students would have to come back for at least a quarter the next year.Â After some discussions (and apparently the threat of him having to teach the class to the same students the next quarter) everyone passed.