And at what point do undergraduate students bail from the USC system for the much cheaper and more accessible CSU system? The CSU system is not only less expensive; but with its emphasis on teaching rather than research it may be a better learning environment for undergraduates. Is the extra 50 grand a person would pay for a BA from UC Santa Barbara versus CSU Channel Islands really worth it when the USC system is geared towards graduate studies? One complaint I have heard about the USC system is that while it's schools have prestige, most of their science faculty are not fluent in spoken English.
Hi Neuropsych,
Unfortunately the CSU is crumpling as well. It's just not as well publicized. Classes have been cut, budgets slashed. The CSUN English Dept is discontinuing its thesis option for its creative writing students. If there's one thing creative writing students should be doing, it's writing. Things are becoming non-functional in this state.
I should mention that the UC system is different than
USC. University of Southern California (USC) is a costly private institution known mostly for its professional schools (film, social work) and its football. When I was growing up it was referred to as "University of Spoiled Children" and the reputation was that kids with more money than brains went there. Now I think their academic reputation is rising, especially given the decline of the UC system.
Here's a jarring account of the violence* at Cal (UC Berkeley), written by a faculty member:
Excerpt:
"Earlier that day a colleague had written to say that the campus police had moved in to take down the Occupy tents and that students had been "beaten viciously." I didn't believe it. In broad daylight? And without provocation? So when we heard that the police had returned, my wife, Brenda Hillman, and I hurried to the campus...Once the cordon formed, the deputy sheriffs pointed their truncheons toward the crowd. It looked like the oldest of military maneuvers, a phalanx out of the Trojan War, but with billy clubs instead of spears. The students were wearing scarves for the first time that year, their cheeks rosy with the first bite of real cold after the long Californian Indian summer. The billy clubs were about the size of a boy's Little League baseball bat. My wife was speaking to the young deputies about the importance of nonviolence and explaining why they should be at home reading to their children, when one of the deputies reached out, shoved my wife in the chest and knocked her down...My wife bounced nimbly to her feet. I tripped and almost fell over her trying to help her up, and at that moment the deputies in the cordon surged forward and, using their clubs as battering rams, began to hammer at the bodies of the line of students. It was stunning to see. They swung hard into their chests and bellies. Particularly shocking to me — it must be a generational reaction — was that they assaulted both the young men and the young women with the same indiscriminate force. If the students turned away, they pounded their ribs. If they turned further away to escape, they hit them on their spines.NONE of the police officers invited us to disperse or gave any warning. We couldn't have dispersed if we'd wanted to because the crowd behind us was pushing forward to see what was going on."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/o...oets-has-new-meaning.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
*There were incidents of campus police violence on the campuses of UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis
and CSULB (one of the more politicized CSU campuses) this week.
