Crossing the Sierra Nevada, Going East

As California experiences another debate over out-of-state students attending University of California campuses, here's an interesting fact: California students are going elsewhere in the West, to Oregon, Washington State, Arizona and Nevada.

The University of Nevada at Reno is the latest institution to be going after Californians.

And the university already gets 22 percent of its 16,838 undergraduates from California.

A recent blog post -- "5 reasons Californians should consider college in Nevada" -- outlined reasons, both intellectual and not.

The author was Justin Bouldt, a former Californian who himself came to Nevada-Reno for his higher education, earning a B.S. in business administration in 2015 and an M.A. in higher education administration in 2019.

"When I started thinking about colleges and universities, I thought there were three options: community college, CSU or UC. And for this Northern California kid, the real question was: Am I going to the beach or the bay?" he wrote.

He stressed what he found about the ability to graduate in four years, writing, "you can actually graduate in four years and some places have scholarships that can make it less expensive to attend compared to staying in-state."

Bouldt also said that "trying to find an affordable place to live gets easier pretty much as soon as you turn the car east."

Other reasons cited:

• A real campus: "When I set foot on campus I was floored. I don’t know what I expected but I know I didn’t expect a beautiful brick and ivy campus with 140 years of history and tradition. And I certainly didn’t expect all of that right next to incredible state-of-the-art facilities like a brand new student union, library, math and science building, and more. For the first time, after many tours, I found a campus that felt like a real college. Campus was alive, everybody was oozing with school pride, and I could already picture myself there."
• The weather: "Elsewhere [than California] there are four full, distinct seasons instead of the two you’re used to (rainy and not rainy). And in these four seasons you may have to contend with things like bitter cold nights, snowy commutes to class, and trying to get enough cell service on the Mt. Rose chair lift to submit your final paper before the due date. But all of these things make for a richer experience and a shorter commute on powder days."
• Nobody's from where they say: "In college, I told everyone I’m from Sacramento. This is not true. I was born in Carmichael, raised in Antelope and went to high school in Roseville. And unless you’re from the greater Sacramento area, you probably have no idea where any of those places are. So it only took a few interactions with people from Hawaii, Alaska, or Oregon for me to realize that just saying 'I’m from Sacramento' is a lot easier than trying to explain that there’s like 15 cities with no discernible borders in and around Sacramento County that all make up one big urban/suburban blob."
• Pride: "Hoodies, hats, t-shirts, license plates, bumper stickers, oh my. The Wolf Pack likes to let you know that the strength of the wolf is the Pack. We wear our pack pride on our literal and figurative sleeves, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned since graduation it’s that the Pack is everywhere."