An unexpected twist in state budget negotiations last week will
allow the University of California to open its doors to more than
1,600 students this year that were originally turned away.
The $105.4 billion budget signed July 31 by Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger retains many of the expected cuts to the UC ““
totaling as much as $272 million. But, it will give back $12
million to the UC in order to enroll the students who were
originally to be redirected to community colleges before
transferring to the UC in the program known as the Guaranteed
Transfer Option.
Less than two months before UC campuses will begin classes, this
late-breaking development is throwing a kink in the college plans
of some students, many of whom had already committed to other
schools.
For this reason, the UC expects only about 1,600 of the original
5,800 students offered the transfer option to accept, said Hanan
Eisenman, a spokesman for the UC Office of the President.
This budget will allow the UC to fulfill the promise set forth
in the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education that guarantees
acceptance to a UC campus for every qualified applicant.
Assembly Speaker Fábian Núñez, D-Los Angeles,
sought additional funding for the UC because denying access to the
UC to qualified students is a violation of the Master Plan, said
Nick Velasquez, a spokesman for Núñez
But not all UC campuses will be accepting every student who was
originally offered the transfer option.
UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC San Diego have such high student
capacities that they will only be able to enroll the students who
accepted the initial offer, Eisenman said.
The remaining UC campuses will “step in” and offer
acceptance to all students who were given the transfer option but
did not accept it, he added.
“All eligible students who originally received a GTO offer
will receive an admissions offer from a UC campus,” Eisenman
said, adding that the offer may not be each student’s first
choice.
Max Benavidez, a spokesman for UCLA, said the school will only
accept the 316 students who “positively sent in a statement
of intent to participate” in the transfer program.
The students who accept the offer to UCLA will not be able to
enroll until either the winter or spring quarter, Benavidez
said.
All students will be notified of their acceptance in the coming
weeks.
“Within a week after we receive the directive to proceed
from (the UC Office of the President), UCLA will contact all GTO
students with a statement of intent to participate by regular
mail,” he said.
The life of the GTO program lasted less than a year but
generated considerable controversy.
In his initial budget proposal last January, Schwarzenegger
asked the UC to reduce its freshman enrollment by 10 percent to
save money for the state.
The measure was one in a series of cuts the UC suffered as a
result of the state’s budget crisis. The UC Board of Regents
also approved increases in in-state undergraduate student fees by
14 percent and graduate student fees by 20 percent.
The latest round of “significant cuts” came with
this budget, Eisenman said.
To reduce freshman enrollment, the UC decided to redirect
eligible students to community colleges through the GTO program
rather than reject them.
This led to public outcry over the failure of the UC to uphold
the Master Plan promise to accept every qualified student.
Consequently, this became one of the issues delaying passage of
the budget for nearly a month. Partisan bickering upheld the final
vote in what proved Schwarzenegger’s most difficult challenge
since taking office.
In a press release from his office, Schwarzenegger characterized
the budget as one “that is balanced, a budget that moves us
toward structural reform and a budget that does not raise
taxes.” He praised both parties for reaching a final
agreement, albeit a month late.
The budget, which contains no new taxes or cuts, is being
criticized by both parties for its heavy borrowing because it is
seen as merely pushing back the state’s budget problems for
several years.