The University of California Board of Regents has scheduled a joint meeting via teleconference on Jan. 14 to discuss a proposal to limit freshman enrollment this fall with the expectation that the state budget will be insufficient for the number of students UC had hoped to enroll.
UC President Mark G. Yudof will release an enrollment plan later this week but details have not been finalized, UC spokesman Brad Hayward said in a statement.
‘It’s an unfortunate impact of the state budget situation,’ Hayward said.
During their November meeting, the regents threatened unspecified limits on future freshman enrollment. Yudof suggested that one solution might be to deny more students entrance into their first-choice UC campuses and instead offer admittance to underenrolled campuses such as UC Merced.
An estimated 127,000 students applied for admission to at least one of the nine UC undergraduate campuses for the fall 2009 term, up from 121,005 last year.
UC officials report that the 5 percent increase has set a record for the highest number of applications in the University of California’s history, adding that it will likely amount to a record number of rejection letters sent to high-school seniors and transfer students.
UC Board of Regents Chairman Richard Blum said in a statement that the governor’s plan to cut UC funding was forcing the university to take drastic action, calling the state an ‘unreliable partner.’
UC officials have said that students who have been turned away from the university could spend their first two years at community colleges, many of which are already struggling with booming enrollment.
‘One day it was going to happen,’ Blum said. ‘We’re supposed to be getting $10,000 for each additional student, and we’re not getting it. If we can’t pick up these kids, hopefully the community colleges can. At the end of the day, you still get a UC diploma.’