According to the San Francisco Chronicle this morning, UC Regents are going to vote next week on higher in-state tuition hikes for law (and other grad) schools than were proposed in the spring:

The new chart is here:
http://links.sfgate.com/ZISD

The old chart is here (Above the Law):
http://abovethelaw.com/2009/08/21/Propo ... %20law.JPG

The numbers are higher by a few hundred dollars for 2010-11. They are $1,600 higher for Berkeley in 2011-12. This is only for residents. Out of state is moving to $50K+ for all UC law schools next year.

2010-11 total in-state fees
Berkeley: $44,220
Davis: $41,722
Irvine: $40,551
UCLA: $40,522

2011-12 in-state
Berkeley: $49,347 (was $47,718 in spring proposal)
Davis: $45,684
Irvine: $44,308
UCLA: $44,542

Holy S$%$

EDIT: Had listed the bus school numbers, so deleted.

Honestly, there is terrible news for people interested in attending school on the West coast.

I personally feel as though the tuition should look something like this:

$50,000 Berkeley
$40,000 UCLA/Irvine (if it ranks high)
$30,000 Davis/Hastings

This way there would be a distinguishable difference between the schools that would be implied through cost disparity through their cost.

This should be necessary because there is no way that the schools are close enough (in all quantitative measures) to warrant them all costing about the same).

Now, while these schools are skyrocketing in price, they indeed are public schools.

California is known for "setting the curve" in higher education in the United States.

If the rest of the US public law programs follow this curve, things could get bad.

I feel as though the UC system should take a different route and just not ever offer out of state students in state tuition (not 2L and 3L years).

It doesn't make sense to place the burden of cost on in state students when they have been there all along (and are real in state students).

This isn't good.

Out of State is this:
2010-11 total out-of-state fees
Berkeley: $52,220
Davis: $50,554
Irvine: $50,574
UCLA: $50,545

2011-12 out-of-state
Berkeley: $54,830
Davis: $55,910
Irvine: $54,109
UCLA: $54,343

2012-13 out-of-state
Berkeley: $57,573
Davis: $60,059
Irvine: $57,995
UCLA: $58,542

Holy crap. The UCs are officially the most expensive law schools, even more expensive than top privates. Doesn't seem like they are worth the price anymore.

Well, this sucks.

The tuition increases are in response to the CA budget crisis. This isn't indicative of what's going to happen to every public school system. Half the schools on the list offer poor job prospects...why would anyone pay 60k for no job?

and yet apps will continue to rise every year and people will still attend. Even if Berkeley costs $100k/yr to attend, I'm sure people would still flock to it. I sure would. I wouldn't care what the price was if it meant getting a legal education at Berkeley. Like someone posted above, the tuition should go in order of rank. I think that would be a lot more reasonable.

If it costs 300k for law school, I don't think people would flock to Stanford. Benefit (job prospects) < Cost at that point. The legal field is not in a pretty position as it is. You'd have to be really stupid to pay 300k for a law degree, really, really, really stupid.

This obviously comes at a really bad time, given the economy and job prospects. I'll be interested to see what other top public law schools do, but they have the benefit of not relying so heavily on state funding as UC.

UVA and Michigan get 3 percent or less of their funding from their state budgets. By contrast, Dean Edley said in 2007 that Berkeley received 27 percent of its funding from the state of California: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... NKNGF1.DTL

That percentage may have since gone down in proportion to the recent rate increases, but it is likely nowhere near as low as the other two schools.

There are still gonna be big scholarships for everybody for the next few classes at UC Irvine, although rate hikes like that are surely gonna make things tougher on the fundraisers who need to get the money to pay for it...

pany1985 -- Have they said yet what they're going to do at Irvine next year? The current class is getting a great bargain given the direction UC is moving.

Well nothing is officially confirmed or announced, but from what I've heard, everyone in next year's class should be getting at least a 50% scholarship. I'm assuming there will still be full schollies available for top prospects, with declining awards for applicants with lesser stats, but I'm not guaranteeing that'll be the setup. Like I said, nothing's official yet, but the plan is definitely to continue giving out significant money for the next few classes at least. The people working to fundraise for UCI seem to know what they're doing.

Yeah, it's expensive, but what are you going to use as an alternative? For FT in NorCal this year: Santa Clara is $38k, USF is $37k, UoP-McG is $38.5k; for SoCal: LLS is $40.5k, Pepperdine is $39k, USD is $40k. Obviously COL varies across these places, but the tuitions will likely rise next year and the year after that.

Are these schools, all lower-ranked than Davis and Hastings, really a much better deal if your savings are only four figures? Would a scholarship under $10,000 be enough to pick these schools over Davis, Hastings or Irvine? Probably not. Really doubt anybody would pick SCU over Boalt or LLS over UCLA for a few thousand dollars in savings.

Also, USC is way more expensive than any of these schools (the TLS profile says tuition is $44k).

Edit - obviously, though, it's a different game for out of state. Savings would be five figures.

I'm sorry.

I should have been more clear.

I meant dramatically increasing the prices of public law programs so that they do not rely on funds from the state.

(similarly to Michigan and Virginia law schools)

While doing this would prevent issues with funding,

it would destroy what public law programs are (affordable alternatives to private schools).

The savings probably would be in the tens of thousands of dollars at those private schools you mentioned. If you can get into Boalt, SCU would probably give you a huge scholarship. If you can get into Davis, McGeorge would probably give you a good amount of money, too.

UCD and Hastings offer better access to jobs than the other schools you mentioned, so it's fair to say that they should be able to charge comparable amounts. I think many people are just frustrated at the loss of what was once a great path toward becoming a lawyer in California. Just 10 years ago, you could graduate from a UC law school with only $30K in debt. Now you can't even get through one year for that money.

As for Boalt and UCLA, you might not pick SCU/LLS over them, but you'd give more consideration to peer national schools with price becoming a minimal factor.

Where are you getting this from?

Lol, the PDF that was linked.

You really are Capt. Fact Free of TLS, aren't you?

Source: (link, page 13)

Cliff notes version.
- Previous budget mess (2003) cost UCs most of the state subsidy
- UC's lost ground to competitors that charged three arms and a leg for tuition
- These tuition hikes (four arms and leg) were formulated in 2007, and set to take effect over the 2010-2012 three-year period.

Yes, it FEELS like the state budget crisis is what is causing this clusterfuck. It might have exacerbated things some, but UCs learned their lesson (can't depend on retards in Sacremento) after the previous mess.

I'm glad the Regents opened Irvine (link 1).

So far I like what I'm reading: "Every state system of public education save California manages to sustain (at best) one flagship campus. Many, including such states as New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, do not manage even that."

Yes. Ironically, Berkeley was concerned the schools would slip in the ratings if they didn't jack up fees because they wouldn't be able to compete with free cash that other schools have. So essentially as the tuition market was booming, they said, "everyone else is charging 40K+, we should, too." Only problem is the market crashed after they decided that. And the very real question now is will this destroy their rankings. Honestly, will USC now climb above UCLA - who will pay almost 60K for UCLA if they can go to USC for less? Even Berkeley, at 60K+ out of state in an economy when people have become debt averse, how could it not hurt. And poor Davis.... 60K out of state? Who on the planet would pay that.

The UC's distinct advantage over the years was having top quality ed at discount rates. Just a few years back, you could get a UCLA Law degree for just above 20K/year. Who wouldn't pick that over others - and so their numbers rose and rose. But with these fees - who knows, they are still obviously top notch programs, but... just a darn shame.