Fiat Lux

Image from brainchildvn via Wikimedia Commons

I am unabashedly in love with my University. I knew it from the moment I walked onto the campus when visiting colleges the summer before my senior year of high school. It's a beautiful campus situated in a one-of-a-kind city, but that is only part of its appeal. The idealist in me is enamored with the idea, quintessentially Californian, that a public institution can provide an education on par with the best private institutions in the country. I love it so much that I must admit that I have become a public university snob, turning my nose up at those privileged Ivies.

Here are some facts to be proud of from the Berkeley website:

• 70% have at least one parent born outside the U.S. (2008) (Source)

• 17% are first in their family to attend a college (Fall 2009 and Spring 2010)

• In 2007-08, 33 percent of all Berkeley undergrads (Source) were eligible for Pell Grants (family incomes typically less than $45,000 a year). Berkeley educates more of these economically disadvantaged students than all of the Ivy League universities combined.

For a person who spent most of her time growing up in Midwest suburbia, studying, living and yes, partying, with people with such diverse backgrounds was an amazing experience. I don't think any of the parents of my three best friends from college, the lovely ladies featured here, were born in the US.

I bring this up because recently the Washington Monthly published a new set of college rankings. They came up with a system which, in their words provides "a measure of not just what colleges can do for you, but what colleges are doing for the country." It is no surprise that Berkeley is ranked number one by a significant margin. It's also no surprise, given the University of California's mandate, that UC San Diego and UCLA came in 2nd and 3rd, respectively. Stanford is the first big name private school at number 4, and Harvard, MIT and University of Chicago didn't make the top 10 (they are 11,12 and 13, respectively). I'm happy to say that my sister's alma mater, University of Washington at Seattle, and my brother's current school, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, are also in the top 20 at 14 and 18, respectively.

The University, and California education in general, is in unprecedented financial difficulty right now due to the short sightedness of the legislators and the disaster we call the state Constitution which hamstrings the budget process. Hopefully lawmakers in Sacramento, who are cutting funding to the University of California, including its Cal Grant program which funds low and middle income students, will see these rankings and think twice about what they are doing to the education system that was, and is, a model for the world.