November 30 marked the deadline to apply for a spot at any University of California school. For many students, this is the culmination of four years of academic excellence in the hopes of being accepted into these prestigious state schools. But with a high amount of rejections in recent years, this process has unjustly become more difficult, especially for California residents.

However, this year, instate applicants will have more to look forward to. Just recently, the UC system has announced that it has pledged to accept 5,000 more in-state applicants after finally negotiating and settling on a $25 million state budget allocation. This decision will not only affect the current year of 2015-2016 hopefuls, but also other future applicant classes as well since the UCs have also pledged to accept 5,000 more students the in 2018 and in 2019.

This decision was made because of the diminishing amount of instate students being accepted. This year’s current UC freshman class marked a record low, with only 60 percent in-state students—something that shouldn’t happen in state universities.

Lack of state funding in recent years has caused UC schools to rely more on tuition revenue to fund the universities. As a result, because out-of-state students typically pay $20,000 more in tuition, the UCs have been accepting these students based more on their ability to pay than their actual merit. It is good to see that this issue has now been resolved with the new budget adjustments, because this should not be the way the universities accept students.

Admissions to UC schools and even Cal States have become more competitive, as even promising applicants get turned away. This is a distressing note because UCs are required to accept the top 10 percent of students from California public high schools into at least one UC school. This pledge grows more difficult to fulfill when multiple UCs reject students. As a result, qualified students are forced to apply to private universities, where the tuition costs are typically higher.

It has yet to be discussed how the UCs will accommodate this increase in students and if their campuses can handle this increased student population. Still, students and their parents should not have to feel slighted, after paying taxes to support the UC system, because these schools feel the need to accept out-of-state students for budget reasons.

Many Californians, like me, have lived with the expectation that the UC schools will open their doors to California applicants. When it comes to college, students see state schools as the best option in comparison to the more selective and pricey counterparts, private universities. Thus, in-state applicants have every reason to be excited by this decision, as it should have happened sooner. The UC system’s mission, after all, is to provide quality and affordable education to Californians.