On Wednesday, the UC Board of Regents decided to vote in favor of a measure that would reduce student enrollment across the UC system.
The enrollment cap was one of many options the regents were considering to help neutralize the university’s budget and over-enrollment problems.
The UC currently enrolls some 11,000 students for whom the university has none of the necessary state funding.
The cap will reduce the enrollment of freshmen resident students by 2,300 for the 2009-2010 academic year.
The proposal is part of a larger plan that will, according to the UC Regents Web site, reduce UC-wide enrollment gradually over the next few years.
Student leaders had called attention to the fact that the university is not over-enrolled in terms of capacity so much as it is underfunded for the current student body size.
But such complaints are rhetorical arguments unfounded in fact or reason and are thus irrelevant ““ the UC currently enrolls more students than it can afford to educate.
That’s called over-enrollment.
Though the decision could not have been an easy one, we must commend the regents on their decision.
The signs are abundant and clear. In recent years, problems with high enrollment figures and competition for resources have been mounting.
This is especially troublesome at schools where the standard class model is the triple-digit enrolled lecture format we all know so well.
Academic and social impersonality will only continue to get worse at UCs as resources are spread ever-thinner among far too many students.
The plan adopted can also be commended for its gradual approach to the problem of over-enrollment.
UCLA and UC Berkeley, both of which have been dealing with problems of heavy enrollment for a number of years, will be unaffected by the new plan.
Of the other UCs, UC San Diego and UC Irvine will be most affected with each expected to cut its incoming freshman class by 12 percent.
To further offset the impact of Wednesday’s difficult decision, the measure also included an increase in transfer enrollment by 500 students across the UC.
The problems that face the regents are numerous and daunting, and while it is unfortunate that Wednesday’s decision had to be made, we applaud the administrators for stepping up and making cuts where and when it was necessary.
Legislators in Sacramento could learn a thing or two from this kind of uncowardly decision making
As some of the regents articulated during their deliberations, the decisions that the UC is being forced to make are a direct result of the poor choices that have been made at higher levels.
The state of California as a whole needs to reevaluate its priorities, and education needs to be near the top of the list.
The UC system has built a reputation as one of the finest educational institutions in the world, but that reputation will only continue to tarnish as funds and other forms of support are slowly stripped away.
Legislators ought to be doing all they can to keep funding in schools of every level, and sweeping cuts to UC and CSU budgets are simply unacceptable.
Conversely, the UC Regents and others within the UC and CSU systems ought to be fighting harder to get the support they need.
Above all, students need to stand up for their right to affordable education before things get worse.