UCLA's Gene Block Serves Up an Ace

Gene Block is the Chancellor (i.e President) of UCLA.  In this Los Angeles Times Op-Ed , he makes a powerful case for supporting my favorite university. He lays out a stark tradeoff.  The people of California appear to want a “free lunch”.   To keep this bad analogy going, they want a tasty high quality meal at a very low price.  Chancellor Block points out that this option isn’t on the menu.

UCLA is an Ivy League quality institution that has been charging students roughly $11,000 a year in tuition.   Princeton’s tuition is $37,000.   I have taught at the University of Chicago, Columbia, Tufts, Harvard and Stanford — so I’ve been at some excellent schools and I think I know what I’m talking about.

How has UCLA been able to supply an excellent education while charging a much lower tuition than the Ivy League Schools?  The answer isn’t endowment income.  UCLA’s endowment is a fraction of Princeton’s.  The answer is $ from California taxpayers.  Now, the taxpayers want to cut off their end of the bargain.  Guess what will happen next?  

What share of Princeton students are from California?   I would guess 10%.

In the near future, UCLA could have a California enrollment of 50% and an annual tuition of $25,000.  There are plenty of people from around the United States and from Asia who would be happy to pay this sticker price to be learning a lot while enjoying the sunshine and the great lifestyle of West Los Angeles.  

The California middle class need to make a decision about whether they will keep their end of the social contract to preserve excellent public universities.

My own preference is for UCLA to stop accepting state money and make the transition to being a private “Ivy League” quality school.  The Ivy League schools have the resources to offer generous scholarships to deserving students from poor families.  I am confident that UCLA can compete with the Ivy League schools for the best and the brightest and the resources that UCLA would collect from tuition would allow it to attract even better faculty that would further increase demand to learn in the sun.  NYU has shown how this model works.

I prefer this outcome because it ends the painful uncertainty about the future of my great school.  The transition will be “easy” once we know that we can’t go back.

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