After a few clicks, Kate Nelson was in.
The second-year physiological science student successfully enrolled in some fall classes sought by many other life science majors.
“It was completely the luck of the draw,” Nelson said.
Early enrollment appointment times brought relief to students like Nelson, who did not have to clamor to fill the last remaining seats in popular courses.
But Nelson and the rest of the UCLA student body will not be immune to future budget cuts and possible course shortages looming in the new school year.
In recent letters to the campus community, top school officials have laid out tentative plans to alleviate problems ““ one of which is over-enrollment ““ while facing the task of eliminating approximately $40 million in budget cuts this year.
Chancellor Gene Block announced in his June 30 memo that the university has enrolled approximately 1,750 students over its target.
Yet other school administrators were quick to point out that the over-enrollment figure has changed only slightly from the previous year, and the total enrollment number of the general campus is expected to be about the same.
“The numbers of students enrolling in the fall and last fall are the same at the end of the day,” said Julie Sina, chief of staff at the UCLA College.
Robert Cox, manager of the Office of Analysis and Information Management, said the over-enrollment number is not necessarily based on a raw number of students on campus but on the number of full-time equivalent students, who take about 15 units each quarter.
Tom Lifka, assistant vice chancellor for student academic services, said the amount of student credit hours that the school is being funded for is less than the number that the school expects to have based upon earlier projections.
Last year, UCLA was over-enrolled by 1,600 students. However, the undergraduate student population will stay the same at the 25,450 mark, Cox added.
Ashley McFadden, a third-year American literature and culture student, said she expects over-enrollment to have an impact on the student body, specifically class sizes, but should not be viewed as an extreme numerical figure.
“When you are looking at a school like UCLA in the grand scheme, 1,750 out of 30,000 or so students is not a huge margin,” McFadden said.
With the impending budget cuts, officials said the concern is not a perceived greater number of competing students but the tentative availability of seats and courses in the upcoming years.
“It is not an over-enrollment threat, but an under-funding threat,” Cox said. “It will be harder to get into classes because of fewer classes possibly being offered.”
External Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh outlined in his July 2 memo specific changes needed to reduce costs, which could affect course sizes and availability and lead to overcrowding.
Besides staff salary reductions and already planned program cuts, some of the cost-saving measures UCLA is expected to make include reducing faculty searches from 100 to 25, increasing the number of non-resident students, prioritizing majors’ core courses, considering greater usage of summer sessions and reducing the number of courses offered while maintaining the number of seats available.
Waugh said in the letter that every department is expected have a task force to review curriculum and make recommendations as early as possible.
Nelson said she already felt nervous about not getting into the upper division courses she needed, adding that many are offered only once a year. As an out-of-state student, she added she would not be able to afford summer school if she could not get into such courses during the regular three quarter period.
“The school should make courses available to everyone who needs them,” Nelson said.
Sina, a member of several enrollment committees, said the school must prepare to offer nearly the same number of seats to students, but the committees are still in tentative assessment and planning stages.
“Right now with these work groups, anything is open for conversation,” Sina said. “But people do feel a sense of urgency. Both the chancellor and the (executive vice chancellor) have been clear about these priorities.”
Sina added that departments may not have placed controls on course enrollment for the fall quarter so far, but similar options are being considered.
Some departments, such as psychology, have already taken recent measures to combat over-enrollment.
The psychology department had a recent history of overcrowding with students not getting the courses they needed in time to graduate and instituted an application procedure last year.
“We can then decide how many people we could effectively serve,” said Barbara Knowlton, vice chair for undergraduate studies.
Knowlton, a professor of behavioral neuroscience, said her department also has made the decision to cover required courses, making them available for students who want to graduate in four years.
“We don’t want to impede people’s process of graduating on time,” she said. “But we want to make sure that we don’t water down the major too much.”
Elza Mambreyan, a fourth-year psychology and pre-med student, said she was surprised to have a fairly easy time enrolling in the upper division classes she needed for fall quarter, but she noticed less variety in the psychology offerings.
“There were considerably less classes,” Mambreyan said. “Fall quarter is usually the quarter that has the most variety.”
She added that she expects classrooms to become more crowded next year.
Knowlton could not confirm the change of the psychology department’s course offerings for fall quarter from the past year.
“I think perhaps there will be a decrease in variety, which may be reflected in future years because the university cannot easily hire new faculty,” Knowlton said. “With fewer faculty available, it is more of a challenge.”
McFadden stressed the importance of ensuring that course offerings remain abundant despite over-enrollment.
She said she was impressed by the variety of English classes offered, but she experienced some difficulty getting into popular upper division English classes, which often cap enrollment at 30 to 40 students.
Whatever shortages occur during future enrollment appointments, McFadden said she will remain optimistic and rely on herself.
“My major will be on me,” she said. “My classes will be whatever I make of it.”