After 11 years of continual increases in the number of applications, the University of California and the state have still not managed to figure out how to make room for everyone who deserves to be here.
UC President Janet Napolitano announced last week that California resident enrollment is frozen at all UC campuses, meaning the same number of in-state students will be accepted this year as last year, despite increased application numbers. Nonresident enrollment will be frozen from last year at UCLA and Berkeley, and UC San Diego will not be allowed to accept a freshman class that is more than 20 percent nonresident.
The California state budget is due during the middle of June, and this will determine how much funding the UC will receive. There is a chance that Gov. Jerry Brown will pledge more money to the UC before then, but the UC likely won’t know exactly where it stands until June. By then, it will be far too late to extend more acceptances to qualified students who got rejected because of the freeze.
The best solution at this point is compromise. The UC should indeed modify enrollment numbers if it does not receive additional state funding, but it should not create a hard freeze on enrollment. There was an overall 5.8 percent increase in students applying to at least one UC campus in the 2015-2016 academic year. There should be an increase in admitted students of about 2-3 percent to try to maximize the amount of students let in without overextending the University.
This increase in student enrollment at the UC should be funded by a combined effort of increased state funding, decreases in UC administrative salaries and a small increase in tuition. This way the austerity is somewhat spread and no one takes the full blow.
Nonresident student enrollment is capped at only a few campuses because those are the campuses where most out-of-state demand exists. The freeze on nonresident enrollment at three campuses will deprive the UC of the greater tuition that these students pay, which potentially negates any possibility of admitting more California residents. Placing freezes on enrollment is not the end-all solution to make sure the greatest number of qualified California students have an opportunity to get a UC education.
As part of its compromise with the state, the UC needs to share the burden and do its part to find more efficient allocations of the funds it does have. There is a significant number of UC employees making over $500,000 gross annual pay. If everyone at the UC Office of the President and all of the top administrators at each campus took a small pay cut, this money could greatly contribute to fixing the gap between the funding we have and the funding we want.
UC employees sharing the cost burden would also decrease anger from applicants and California residents and signal the reality of the budget constraints. It would be an important signal to Brown that the UC is tightening its belt and needs this extra funding.
Right now, the UC is looking for $98 million more in state dollars. If the UC could come up with some of this on their own by cutting costs and making slight pay cuts, they could be more likely to have enough funding to accept the number of desired students.
More students going to college is a good thing. The UCs don’t want to turn away qualified students who have met the requirements laid out for them. California is facing a degree shortage and cannot afford to turn away college applicants.
California State University schools are facing the same pressures of increased demand and decreased funding. The squeeze is being felt everywhere. Therefore, the UC can’t expect that students they aren’t admitting will simply get in and enroll elsewhere.
It’s unfair to students who have met their A-G course requirements, taken their standardized tests and done everything the universities set out for them to do and not have a place at a public institution in their home state.
If the number of students applying to and desiring to go to college at a public institution in California continues to grow, the UC and the state government need to jointly make a plan to accommodate those students so each year there isn’t a question of whether or not there will be room for qualified students.