Between finishing her school work and tutoring students, Angela Sanchez, who was homeless the last two years of high school, found time to finish eight college applications.
Her acceptance letter into UCLA was the last to arrive. Despite getting accepted to all eight colleges, there was no doubt in her mind where she would be going.
“This is my first choice of the universities I got into,” Sanchez said. “At orientation, I was already bleeding blue and gold.”
The first-year history student, who is in the alumni scholar’s club and volunteers with at-risk students in Los Angeles, was recently contacted by UCLA media relations to post a video on their new campaign website, IOUCLA.org.
Designed to promote the crucial nature of UCLA and prevent budget cuts to the school, the IOUCLA website is a forum for current students, alumni, faculty and anyone else in the community affected by the university to advocate for UCLA.
“I jumped at the opportunity. I’m a current student, so whatever funding we can get will benefit myself and my student body. I’m all for it,” Sanchez said.
IOUCLA is one way in which UCLA is participating in a larger UC Board of Regents discussion to develop new approaches for retaining state funding and garnering alternative funding sources for the UC system.
“IOUCLA is showing examples of how UCLA has made an impact in not only students’ lives but in the surrounding community as well,” Sanchez said.
Ranging from personal stories of UCLA’s importance to encouragement to contact state legislatures, the website is a promotional tool rather than another way for UCLA to ask for donations.
“Protecting and restoring as much state funding as possible is a vital resource,” said Lawrence Lokman, associate vice chancellor of communications and public outreach. “We feel we need more voices helping us with those arguments and putting pressure on the legislature to make UC a priority.”
Sanchez is just one of more than 50 people who have already posted their personal accounts of UCLA’s value on the website. Another few hundred have also signed up to advocate to legislators on behalf of UCLA.
The stories collected on the website will be taken to state legislators in approximately a month and a half, as well as at multiple times throughout the 2010-2011 school year, to demonstrate that UCLA is indispensable in the community, Lokman said.
“There is a short-term need that (IOUCLA) is helping to answer, which is enlisting a broader chorus of voices on behalf of the university and its importance in our efforts in Sacramento to protect our share of the budget,” he said. “Over the longer time, it is meant to help people understand the resource challenge and understand the kinds of solutions that are involved so they can be more-informed advocates for the university.”
Despite the need for state support, discussions about alternative funding as a means to maintain affordability are underway.
“The resource question isn’t only going to be answered by pressuring the state to restore funding levels for UCLA. There are a lot of conversations that are underway system-wide that UCLA is participating in that involves identifying new sources of revenue and what the trade-offs are,” Lokman said. “Part of what (IOUCLA) is about is beginning to enlist people to learn about them.”
The UC Commission on the Future, a subdivision of the UC Board of Regents, has begun looking at new ways to sustain the quality of and affordability of the UC system in the future.
Such strategies include increasing state funding, improving academic and administrative efficiency, and generating additional revenues, according to the commission’s website.
Creating differentiated undergraduate student fees, which would increase the fees at more selective UC campuses, is one solution the commission has proposed to alleviate funding problems.
Another recommendation that the commission has made is to increase the number of out-of-state and international students.
Both solutions provided by the commission are controversial but have their benefits, Lokman said.
“On the good side, (differentiated fees and an increase in nonresident students) could bring in more revenue, not just for these campuses but for other UC campuses, since this money is shared,” he said.
“But it could limit access to California students and it could have an impact on underrepresented minorities within the region and state,” he added.
Although the IOUCLA campaign and any alternative sources of funding will take time before they produce changes, Lokman said they are an important step for maintaining the affordability and quality of UCLA.
“Other universities do offer extracurricular activities and other schools do offer promising enriching education programs, but the way UCLA offers it and the price they offer it for ““ that is what makes (UCLA) exceptional,” Sanchez said. “If you want to pay more for less, you go to USC.”