During her time at UCLA, Pia Urtubia has faced overcrowding in her classes.
In Math 1, the second-year psychobiology student felt that overcrowding made the class more challenging for students to pass. She said more students did not receive as many opportunities to meet with the professor during office hours and had to photocopy or borrow the textbook as more copies were being ordered.
“If there’s more overcrowding in the classes, there’s not going to be much one-on-one contact, and students need that interaction,” she said.
The University of California campuses, though, are not the only ones facing such severe overcrowding, as a new proposal being considered by the University of Florida hopes to ease overcrowding on campus during the fall.
The proposal would allow a cohort of students to be offered attendance during the spring and summer instead of taking classes in the fall, said the proposal’s author, University of Florida Provost Joseph Glover. The proposal requires a change in statutory law, and the legislature still has to approve it, Glover said.
According to Glover, the reasoning is that many students graduate after the fall, leaving these student spots available in the spring.
By allowing students the option of skipping the fall in favor of starting school during the spring, the proposal would reduce overcrowding in the fall and allow an extra thousand students to be admitted, he added. Students who opt to take the fall term off can also use the time for internships or to study abroad.
Glover added that the situation facing the University of Florida is similar to UCLA’s, as many students graduate before the spring and the summer, leaving more capacity for student enrollment during those terms.
The proposal would increase access to higher education for students in Florida and help with state budget problems, as increasing enrollment also increases the number of tuition-paying students, he said.
The University of Florida increased student fees by 15 percent for the current school year, while the UCs have increased student fees by 32 percent. Both the University of Florida and the UCs have also seen enrollment numbers increase, with the UCs increasing its freshman enrollment this year from 36,481 to 37,151.
The UC system does not have a proposal to make the fall quarter optional, said Ricardo Vazquez, a UC spokesman. He added, however, that in recent years the UCs have had significantly more enrollment, which has increased the need for facilities and student graduation.
“Our focus has been on offering particular gateway courses (prerequisites and General Education) and other oversubscribed courses in the summer to accelerate the time to getting degrees,” Vazquez said.
He added that full-time summer enrollment has grown 125 percent since 2000. Nearly 75,000 students enroll in UC summer sessions, and more than 70 percent of registered students have enrolled in at least one summer session.
“Certainly, one of the issues we have encountered lately is we’re over-enrolled by 15,000 students where we have no state funding,” he said, adding that as a result, the UCs had to reduce resident freshmen by a “modest number” over the last two years.
Urtubia, however, remains skeptical if the plan will work.
“If that becomes a regular thing, then January will be the new September, so it’ll be the same thing in the end. Everyone will see January as the time to enroll,” she said. “I don’t think students will appreciate it because everyone loves summer.”