IMHO, California state higher education is setup to be tiered. UC > CSU > Community Colleges. If UC is getting a lot of STEM students that need remedial math, I think something has gone wrong. Those students might be better served by getting their math needs met at a community college and transfering to UC later.

For one, why pay UC prices for remedial math? For two, community college has a lot more sections of remedial math and more experience teaching it.

If you're in a degree that doesn't need much math, taking remedial math at UC is probably fine; but all the STEM degrees want at least the full calculus series (afaik).