Rohini Ashok, parent of Upper School student Arjun Ashok (11), launched a petition on May 2 titled “UCs for Californians,” which is close to achieving its goal of 3000 signatures.

According to its MoveOn entry, which directly petitions The California State House, The California State Senate, and Gov. Jerry Brown, the petition intends to stop the University of California schools from “‘selling’ its admission process to the highest bidder.”

A San Jose Mercury News article on the subject cited both past and present statistics for U.C. Berkeley admissions. The number of California freshmen enrolled at U.C. Berkeley decreased by 800 from 2009 to 2014, yet the number of out-of-state incoming freshmen increased by 1080.

“That would make sense, because it’s a California public school,” she said. “It would be in their best interest to cater to those under the system in the state.”

Upper School students have also commented on the way they perceive the system to work.

“We’re the ones funding the U.C. system, but they’re tending to accept more out of state residents because they get more money that way,” Jeremy Binkley (11) said.

As of the 2012-2013 U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Survey, current in-state students pay 32.9 percent of what out-of-state undergraduates pay.

“People are paying their taxes and their children are essentially getting shortchanged,” Ashok said. “Essentially, California is funding a U.C. system that doesn’t work so well. [The petition is] going to be a huge process, and something needs to be done and needs to be done very quickly.”

Physics teacher Mark Brada disagreed with the premise of the petition, citing issues with the current funding of the U.C. system.

“The citizens of California have voted to defund the U.C. system, so I don’t believe that the system has any obligation to [students of] the state in particular,” he said.

Some Upper School students see the matter as a relative non-issue.

“Despite its personal relevance to my own success, I see the drop in California admissions as a phenomenon linked inextricably to globalization as a whole and that, quite honestly, sooner or later this will have to come to pass,” Abhinav Ketineni (10) said.

Ashok also shared her plan of action for moving forward with the petition.

“I will probably wait just a little bit longer, and then I’ll write to the governor to get an appointment to meet with him or staff and physically turn in the petition,” she said. “I’ve invited everybody who wants to go to join me, because this is not something for me, it’s not my thing, it’s for all of the children who can potentially go to a U.C. down the line.”

She went on to give encouragement to past and present California high school students.

“Keep working hard, this is your legacy and you have every right to be at a U.C. if you work hard and keep your grades up,” she said. “If you got turned down in the past it wasn’t your fault, it was a problem that’s bigger than all of you.”

Out of 164 polled, the Upper School’s graduating class of 2014 has 24 students that have decided on schools in the U.C. system for their first year of undergraduate education.

This piece was originally published in the pages of the Winged Post on May 16, 2014.