University of California was a beacon of opportunity. What went wrong and how to fix it

This column is the latest in a series on parenting children in the final years of high school, “Emptying the Nest.” Read the previous installment, about mourning the last first day of school, here.

My children exist in part because of the University of California system.

It was Gov. Pat Brown’s Master Plan for Higher Education, designed to guarantee every high school graduate in the state the opportunity to attend college, that helped my father-in-law convince his wife that they should move from her small hometown in Indiana to the planned community of Lakewood.

There were, of course, a million factors that led me to meet my husband of 26 years. But one thing is for sure: It wouldn’t have happened if he had stayed in Indiana.

So I have many reasons to be grateful to the UC system. Reasons I try to remember as our family faces, for the third and final time, the stomach-churning experience of attempting to be accepted into it.

As millions of parents and students know, the college admissions process has become increasingly ghastly. Long gone are the days of my youth, when, after a reasonable assessment of one’s budget and ability as a student, you could apply to a handful of schools in and out of state — including the obligatory “reach” and “safety” — and expect to be accepted at several.

Now that research is a years-long process, requiring spreadsheets of tuition and potential aid, acceptance rates (in general and for your student’s preferred area of study) and housing availability and costs.

According to U.S. News & World Report, in the past 20 years, national university tuition and fees in general have jumped, without adjusting for inflation, more than 100% — in-state tuition and fees at public universities by about 133%.

And forget a handful of college applications. Now most counselors advise students to apply to at least 10, with several safeties. As for those “reach” colleges, well, even for California graduates, that now includes most of the UCs.

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I know many folks whose children have attended even the most popular members of the system — UCLA (acceptance rate: 9%), UC Berkeley (11.6%), UC San Diego (26.8%), UC Irvine (28.8%), UC Santa Barbara (32.9%).

But I know many more who, years later, remain baffled by the fact that their 4.0-plus child, who was captain of the volleyball team/student council president/founder of a thriving nonprofit, was not even wait-listed.

Reddit is a cacophony of anguish when it comes to questions about how, even if, one can get into most UCs. The most experienced high-school guidance and private college counselors advise high-achieving California students not to count on getting into the UCs of their choice, unless that choice includes Riverside (76%) or Merced (91%).

Both of which are fine schools, if they have strong programs in your child’s area of interest. Which, in the case of my third child, they do not.

After watching her high-achieving older siblings receive their multiple UC rejection letters while being accepted, with scholarships, at out-of-state universities — my son was accepted to UC Davis but chose the University of Missouri — my youngest child initially vowed to bypass the whole painful experience. But then she realized that most of the best schools for her choice of major were UCs. So she applied to five of them, as well as two California State schools, one of which accepts only 34% of applicants.

The amount of time she has spent assembling her pitch to each of them — writing essays, assembling portfolios and procuring recommendation letters — has become, essentially, a part-time job. Which she already has, along with all the extracurriculars required to prove she will be an asset to whichever university deigns to accept our tens of thousands of dollars in tuition, housing and fees.

She also applied to a slew of out-of-state and private universities, none of which we can afford without significant aid. When did $70,000 a year become the norm?

But all her top choices are UCs, so here’s hoping. She has a high GPA, good AP scores and a real passion for her desired area of study. More importantly, the growing outrage over the high rejection rate among California applicants forced UC to cap its out-of-state students at 18% for most of its campuses and attempt to grow its collective student body.

This year, as The Times’ Teresa Watanabe has reported, UC admitted its largest and most diverse freshman class ever, including a 4.3% increase in first-year California students. UC officials hope to add 3,600 more next year, though even with proposed tuition hikes, budget shortfalls may make that impossible.

Still, the fact remains that within a generation, the beacon of the system that drew my husband’s family and thousands of other families like them to California is naught but a dream for most.

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The UCs were originally intended to be centers of research that offered advanced education to the top 12.5% of the state’s graduating seniors; the CSUs were to offer broader learning to the top 33.3%. The growing population of the state, which has more than doubled since 1960, and the ever-increasing disparity of high school education, make this kind of simple math impossible.

But for families who have invested their tax dollars into the state, sending a child who meets the historical standards of a UC to the campus that best meets their educational priorities should not require the kind of multiyear planning and hand-wringing worry of getting into MIT or vaulting into the Ivy League.

Increasing admissions should be a priority of a state that has experienced its first big population drop in decades. UCs should develop more three-year programs, like those at U.K. universities, and offer more off-campus semesters, either abroad or domestically, and work to ensure graduation in four years.

And if creating new or expanding old campuses remains too expensive, perhaps the state should focus on building the programs and reputations of the Cal State universities. Under the Master Plan, only UCs were allowed to offer doctorates, a sign of research focus and prestige. But in 2005, CSUs began offering them in certain programs; two years ago that number was expanded.

Cal Poly, San Diego State and Long Beach State are already on many “Best” lists, but with 20 other campuses in the system, maybe it’s time for California to reconsider its Master Plan with an eye less to tiers and more to ensuring that fewer ambitious and qualified high school graduates are forced to leave the state to find a college of their choice that will admit them.

As important, our collective views of college need to change. Though I continue to scan them, all those “Best” lists do as much harm as good, calcifying the notion that the lower the acceptance rate and the higher the price, the better the school. Which is not always the case.

After my father-in-law used the California college system to coax his family to the Golden State, all three of their children took full advantage, attending, over the years, Long Beach State, San Francisco State, UC Irvine and UCLA. My husband was accepted to Berkeley but ultimately chose San Francisco State because of its writing program — the system was less hierarchical then, and movement between campuses was more frequent.

At our house, the last round of applications have been sent. Now comes the agonizing wait (just in time for Christmas!) And once again, I have told my child that if a certain college doesn’t want her, it’s their loss, not hers. But as she is the first of my children who really wants to stay in California, I do hope California will let her.