Letter to the UC student: Expect to pay more

Dear prospective applicant of the University of California class of 2014,

What do you want to be when you grow up?

A successful businessman? Lawyer? An engineer perhaps?

Rita Yeung | Daily Trojan

All solid choices, no doubt.

But before you answer, you should know that your decision will have a huge impact on your time at any of the 10 esteemed and nationally respected public campuses in our UC system.

Not so much in the sense that you’re probably thinking, though.

Obviously, deciding on a major is an important decision that will help guide you on your scholarly pursuits during your college years. In fact, you’ll probably go through no less than four different college preparation books in the time leading up to your first steps on campus, hoping to find a way to simplify the process. We get it.

But as important as your choice of major will be for obvious reasons, it’s an even bigger issue than you think because of tuition variation.

Let’s get real here. We at the UC system need money. California recently cut approximately $18 billion in funding for public schools and colleges.

Eighteen billion.

Do you know how many iPod nanos that would buy?

Because of this sizeable decrease in funding, we’ve had to raise tuition prices and let go of some of our well-respected faculty members. In fact, your older brothers and sisters have been quite vocal about their displeasure with these measures, standing next to their professors to skip out on their exorbitantly pricey classes to protest.

But mind you, this proud coalition of Golden State institutes of higher education won’t just stand pat and let this budget snafu ruin the quality learning experience of our students.

So we’ve found a new way that will help to offset the loss of state funding — y­­ou pay.

Just kidding. (But seriously, don’t decide to major in business or engineering.)

Look, we only want the best for our students, and upper-level business and engineering professors aren’t just a dime a dozen, nor do they cost a dozen dimes despite what their paltry paychecks may suggest. Therefore, we keep them, but wouldn’t need to do so if you weren’t so insistent on fulfilling some lifelong goal of being some flashy businessman or engineer. So if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s going to be yours.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “This doesn’t sound fair at all. Why should I have to pay more than my peers just because I want to pursue a difficult vocation?”

Just think of it as an investment toward your future. Many of you will already be paying a substantial amount of your tuition via financial aid. What’s another $900 or so? It’s like putting a feather on top of the straw that broke the camel’s back. Besides, you’ll be able to pay it back in no time, assuming that the job market makes an astronomical improvement by the time you graduate.

But don’t worry. If things don’t get any better soon, we’ll have an indiscriminate system of making all undergraduate majors pay extra fees.

Let’s try to make sense of it by relating it to some other situation.

Say you go to the ice cream store with a playmate of yours; you get a chocolate cone, and your friend gets a vanilla cone. They’re both the same basic ice cream cone, but because you chose chocolate, you have to pay more. Why? Because everyone knows that vanilla is the most boring ice cream flavor ever; you are more likely to be a livelier personality compared to your bland friend, and are at greater risk of getting injured and thus unable to repay the 50 extra cents for ice cream that you were charged.

Actually, I suppose that seems like a stretch.

So why should engineers and business students be singled out?

Because these professions have a proven track record of being able to provide recently graduate college students with a decent salary, unlike, say, video game design majors.

But don’t worry. If things don’t get any better soon, we’ll have an indiscriminate system of making all undergraduate majors pay extra fees.

Surely, this can’t be good news for anyone. With many college students taking longer than four years to graduate as it is, making you pay more for certain subjects only compounds the situation. What do you want us to do about it? We’ve been backed into a corner.

While the UC system comes out looking like the bad guy in this situation, we’re just making do with the remnants of a budget we have left.

Why then, should you think about coming into the University of California system?

Because above all, we still have one of the best public university systems in the country, even if “public” is more private than the words “public school” might imply. And though you may be scared off by such radical policies, it might not be long before they’re implemented all across the country. Take the opportunity to be a trendsetter.

Don’t think of this letter as a warning so much as an open invitation to mull over your options in the next decade.

Because there doesn’t seem to be any other defense other than complete transparency, we’ll just hope that honesty will allow you to overlook the glaring deficiencies in our education budget.

To us, you’re not just another number.

You’re a very tangible set of dollars and cents.

Sincerely,

The UC system

Soojin Yoon is a junior majoring public relations. His column, “Boy Meets Word,” runs Thursdays.