Because of an unexpectedly high number of students who accepted offers of admission, UCSD enrolled 3.3 percent more students this year than the school received state funding for, according to UCSD’s Enrollment Planning Committee and A.S.Vice President of Academic Affairs Caroline Song.
“There was something about UCSD this year that made it more attractive to more incoming students,” Song said.
The state allocates funding to the university for each “full-time equivalent,” which is defined as a student taking an average of 16 units per academic year, Song said. While the state is currently providing funds for an enrollment of 23,050, the university has 23,675 full-time undergraduate and graduate students, according to Song.
State funds allocated for each student is “workload money” and largely finances the cost of instruction, according to Associate Vice Chancellor of Undergraduate Education and EPC Chair Mark Appelbaum.
“The overenrollment rate is larger than we usually see, but isn’t a huge crisis when you consider the reduced budget we had to work with,” Appelbaum said. “When you consider the whole picture, the predictions are amazingly close.”
Generally, the campus should remain within 5 percent of the original estimate, Appelbaum said. However, underenrollment is a more serious problem for university finances.
“Of course we’d like to be on target all the time,” Appelbaum said. “But at least if you are overenrolled, funding is possible by the state if there is money available later. If you don’t make enrollment, however, you have to pay back [state money budgeted to the university].”
While the state does not currently budget funds to reimburse the campus for the extra students, it does allocate more money during the year if possible, according to Appelbaum.
“If state funds allow it and they’re able to increase our budget for more students, we’ll receive more money for overenrollment,” he said.
At this point, that extra funding is uncertain because of state budgetary problems, according to Appelbaum.
Fortunately, the university is able to use extra money from other campuses that are currently underenrolled to fund UCSD, according to Director of Analytical Studies Judith O’Boyle.
Statistical models created by institutional research departments, including Campus Planning, predict student enrollment, Appelbaum said. The department takes into account the number of freshmen and transfer students when making estimates. However, roughly three-fourths of the projections rely on returning and continuing students, which are hard variables to predict, according to O’Boyle.
“There are a lot of different things that cause students to graduate earlier or later,” O’Boyle said, citing factors like tuition fees and employment conditions.
Administrators expect 80 additional students to be added to the enrollment roster during the upcoming winter quarter under the Guaranteed Transfer Option, Song said. This option offers university admission to students initially referred to community colleges. Incoming GTO students are currently not included in the 3.3 percent overenrollment figure, according to Song.
“[Overenrollment] means we have to stretch the money as much as we can,” he said.
While overenrollment affects things like university class sizes, it does not impact university housing, according to Appelbaum.
However, this year’s overenrollment will not severely affect class sizes, according to O’Boyle.
“Because there are extra spaces in classes, the additional 700 or so students we are above target doesn’t really make a difference in classrooms,” she said.
All eligible students have also received housing on campus.
“All freshmen who meet all the required deadlines are guaranteed on-campus housing and also receive a two-year guarantee of housing,” Housing and Dining Services Director Mark Cunningham said.
According to Cunningham, his department not only bases housing plans on university projections of enrollment but also takes into account overenrollment.
“If the campus overenrolls, we are still going to meet our commitment to house all eligible students,” he said.
Unfortunately, unexpected numbers of students create a problem in the availability of beds, which forces the department to house students in temporarily “tripled” rooms, according to Cunningham.
However, UCSD’s tripling rate is less than that of other UC campuses, Cunningham said.
“We opened this year with just over 100 triples across our program, which is a very small number compared to [UCLA] or [UC Berkeley],” he said. “But our goal is to not have to triple any students unless we absolutely have no other option.”
While the overenrollment rate still stands at 3.3 percent, Song said that the committee expects the percentage to be cut in half next year.
