Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

themessenger.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

481–490 of 585 posts

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#481

Post by czDRZ-akk »

petsormeat wrote: post #430
999900000999 wrote: post #81

Now in a better world we'd drop a word from this sentence and make it free for all state residents. That's closer to what it used to be. Realistically this doesn't change much since it's extremely unlikely a foster kid wouldn't qualify for a full ride prior to this. The only people who really get screwed are middle class families who make too much to qualify for aid, but can't really afford to pay for school.

It's already difficult to attend California's public universities as a state resident; the more popular campuses prefer nonresidents/international students because they pay full price. No-tuition residents will be even less desired by admissions offices.

Admissions data at UC Berkeley shows that nonresident students have historically been ~35% of admits, with 2022 at 28%. UCLA historically has had ~40% nonresident admits, with 2022 at 34%[0]. UCLA’s freshman profile shows that GPA and SAT/ACT scores (from when they were still required) are higher for nonresidents as well[1]. It’s reasonable to argue that resident admit percentage should be higher, but the idea that nonresidents are preferred isn’t supposed by admissions data.

As for the nonresident tuition issue, it seems like a matter of having the state make up the difference between resident and nonresident tuition so that the university receives the same fee regardless of residency status.

[0] https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/information-...

[1] https://admission.ucla.edu/apply/freshman/freshman-profile/2...

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#482

Post by IOT_Apprentice »

slavboj wrote: post #426
xmddmx wrote: post #294

This idea is not really new - the California Master Plan for Education essentially promised a free higher education to everyone in California. In 1960. [1] As these things go, the plan was eroded over time, with the (in)famous Proposition 13 of 1978 dealing a big blow. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Master_Plan_for_Hig...

There is this meme that Prop 13 is responsible for everything bad in California because of course we could pay for anything if we had more money. In reality the CA budget has grown faster than inflation for decades. https://www.statista.com/statistics/313176/california-state-...

And yet it had that exact effect. Add Reagan into the mix and you destroy things further & end up with the student loan debt crisis.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#483

Post by IOT_Apprentice »

blululu wrote: post #449
slavboj wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is this meme that Prop 13 is responsible for everything bad in California because of course we could pay for anything if we had more money. In reality the CA budget has grown faster than inflation for decades. https://www.statista.com/statistics/313176/california-state-...

I’ve seen people point to prop 13 as a cause of the budget deficits. Not sure how much any of this goes beyond hearsay, but it is much harder to run a deficit when your tax base is decentralized and fixed. The core idea of prop 13 was to cut income and let spending figure itself out separately. The widening budget deficits in CA happen in the aftermath but maybe that was just the consequence of the same fiscal irresp…

The cut was to benefit landlords, especially those who owned apartment complexes.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#484

Post by quag »

yarrowy wrote: post #480
mcny wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal opinion, the first thing we should do is a complete ban on all “professional” and/or spectator sport in any and all educational institution. You can still have classes teaching sports but no spectators and definitely no “college spirit” nonsense. It doesn’t matter to me if these sports generate more revenue than it costs. It is a distraction that we don’t need. If people want to participate in spectator s…

Except the whole point of college is that it's more than just education.

Outside of the USA the point of university is education. Only in the USA have I seen the meme that the point of universities is something other than education. I’m still trying to work out how and why there is a difference. Can you help me understand what the point is if it isn’t education?

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#485

Post by czDRZ-akk »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #390
xmddmx wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CA's population has tripled in 60 years and so has the tax base and # of teachers. This is a non-issue. Society scales. > and high school graduation rates have risen signifigantly (which is of course good). Not necessarily : see my comment below.

Even if teachers have (which I'm not convinced of to begin with), Universities and land haven't. Its no secret that we've had an overpopulation crisis for the past few decades as is, so We haven't fully solved that issue as of now. And I'm equally unsure if taxes have tripled, between increasing poverty on the bottom and more and more tax evasion on top.

Assuming you’re using “overpopulation” to refer to California’s housing shortage, this is not a “too many people” issue or a “not enough land issue”, but rather a “land isn’t being used efficiently” issue. Efficiently housing and moving large numbers of people is by and large a solved problem, with plenty of examples to learn from (see: any megacity in Asia).

California hasn’t solved the issue because some percentage of residents or other interest groups don’t want to solve the issue and have had the political means to block attempts at resolution.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#486

Post by watwut »

User23 wrote: post #473
rdevsrex wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure if we built new universities, there would be plenty of applicants to teach it in, given how fierce the competition for academic positions already is. If capacity at existing colleges is the problem, we could start new ones.

Where exactly would you propose building them? A competitive university is going to require around 2,000 acres of land. Where are you going to find that in today's California? No doubt there is plenty of open space left, but it's not in very desirable areas.

The university does not need to be whole separated city nor include amusement park and catering.

It can be an institution integrated into a city.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#487

Post by watwut »

xmddmx wrote: post #333
hotpotamus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many non-foster kids graduate high school?

The question to ask is "how many kids graduate high school vs. how many should ". Turns out the answer is interesting - about 50 years ago, the graduation rate for high school was around 50%. These days it's much higher (90% or more in some areas). Does this mean the children is learning? Perhaps. It also may represent a failure of our systems - in the past, not everyone needed a high school degree to be a functional…

> Does this mean the children is learning? Perhaps.

Kids also drink less alcohol, commit less crime, get teenage pregnant less often. So yeah, they are likely to be learning more then in 1970.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#488

Post by uoaei »

quag wrote: post #484
yarrowy wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the whole point of college is that it's more than just education.

Outside of the USA the point of university is education. Only in the USA have I seen the meme that the point of universities is something other than education. I’m still trying to work out how and why there is a difference. Can you help me understand what the point is if it isn’t education?

Socializing, learning to live with others, providing opportunities to join social and professional clubs/organizations, navigation of longer-timeline projects and assignments, etc.

You could call all of these 'education' but the usual and implicit image of education in people's minds is lectures and tutoring sessions so it's worth highlighting these other aspects. All of these are present in universities around the world in varying degrees.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#489

Post by valval »

quag wrote: post #484
yarrowy wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the whole point of college is that it's more than just education.

Outside of the USA the point of university is education. Only in the USA have I seen the meme that the point of universities is something other than education. I’m still trying to work out how and why there is a difference. Can you help me understand what the point is if it isn’t education?

In the EU, universities rarely have sports leagues you’re right in that, but all universities have various kinds of organised clubs and events all the damn time — not a week goes past without a lot of extra-curricular activities, of course voluntary.

I have no idea how they handle things in say China, but at least here it’s quite obvious that the point of university is more or less to prepare students for life in general rather than just get educated. Education is of course the grand goal and at least here in Finland universities get some significant amount of money from the government for each graduating student, but your first sentence is still dishonest argumentation at best.

Besides, the GP is talking total nonsense in general. Everyone I know outside the US looks up to your college sports scene in admiration since it looks like an awful lot of fulfilment and fun on top of studies and produces a massive amount of successful athletes in all kinds of sports. We’re envious of it, nothing more. Your country is and has been home to the most innovations and set a positive example to the rest of the world for decades and decades now, and frankly saying otherwise is just silly.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#490

Post by zo1 »

krapp wrote: post #440
dopidopHN wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the vox link, I can’t load it now, I’m traveling and have no bandwidth. I’m ready to change my mind once I’m reaching a wifi. In interval : how did we do it for millenniums before frozen carbs? Random: Let’s say the Roman army. Ok. They were relying on canned food a lot. ( garnum ) But for sure they were not eating frozen hotdog

>how did we do it for millenniums before frozen carbs? We didn't. Child mortality was higher, populations were smaller, life expectancy was lower and malnutrition and starvation were more common. Our current population size is the direct result of post-industrial farming and food production making calories easily available to the masses, and all kinds of foods accessible year-round. But again, the problem isn't moder…

I don't get this. Food is ridiculously cheap when buying/cooking bulk. Cooking in bulk for 500+ students is doable but just needs some dedicated effort, dedicated machinery and investment, and some pre processing that you could certainly outsource to your local community. It's amazingly win win in so many ways.
Post reply on HN