[eastbound]

Are you saying the unis in Santa Cruz are sufficient to raise yourself to millionaire, and the local high schools sufficient to get into those unis? I’m not from the US, genuinely asking. But I have often seen unis have a far-distance preference, just for the social mix, while letting down the locals.

[dekhn]

I guess it really depends on how you count your monies, but if you apply yourself at UCSC you can definitely do quite well. At least, that was true for my generation- I graduated from there in '95, missed out on the first tech recession by hiding in grad school, and then eventually moved to industry when I felt educated enough. Since my industry is tech, I've generally been paid well, with an especially profitable stint at Google. Nearly all that money got reinvested (not in housing) and continues to grow quite well.

Realistically, though, everything about CS changed and so now, I don't know that somebody could get a degree from UCSC and even afford to be a grad student or junior programmer here unless they're willing to give up a lot of niceties.

[epistasis]

Lots of entrepreneurs got their education at UCSC, but typically they put their companies outside of town (not many employees want to move to town. There are some exceptions...)

Santa Cruz students have no more difficulty getting into UCSC than other parts of the state. But the UC has gotten extremely selective due to the same reason housing is short in Santa Cruz: it's not been properly sized to allow for standard population growth in the US.

[fragmede]

I went to UCSC, the Santa Cruz uni, as a California resident that went to high school 30-40 mins north of Santa Cruz, got a BS in computer engineering, and managed to do a couple of years at Google, so I've some money, though they didn't make me a millionaire. They would have if I'd stayed longer though.