Last Friday, the UC Office of the President announced a spike in applications for the seventh consecutive year. The rise in popularity was felt most on our campus, with an 11.2-percent increase over applications received last year.
The news isn’t good for a university system already well over $20 billion in debt. According
to Assistant Vice Chancellor of Admissions Mae Brown, despite the increase in applications, UCSD will be forced to cut admission for the 2011-2012 academic year due to Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed $500-million university funding cut.
Though it’s too early to determine the severity of the enrollment cut, it will inevitably mean lower acceptance rates than those of recent years. Which is, perhaps, a faint silver lining: a lowered rate of admission may help boost UCSD in national rankings, especially those
of U.S. News and World Report, which weighs exclusivity alongside other factors like student-to-teacher ratios and graduation rates.
So, once current students enter the job market, they may be able to credit the state budget crisis for a degree that, if earned through larger, more restricted courses, is at least more exclusive. Excellent.
A more commendable aspect of the UCOP announcement concerns minority applicants. On the UCSD campus, the Chicano/Latino application rate rose 34.4 percent over the previous year, from 9,655 to 12,978. African American applications are up 11.8 percent, from 2,210 to 2,471.
The increases suggest that Chancellor Marye Anne Fox’s and Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Penny Rue’s efforts at saving face following the Winter Quarter 2010 Compton Cookout fiasco may have actually had some tangible impact. (Or perhaps just that applicants didn’t take as much notice as Fox and Rue were afraid they might.)
Yet these achievements pale in comparison to what will be lost. Last week, the Guardian reported that for the first time in the history of the university, students next year will pay more into the UC operating budget than will the state. Coupled with the near-certain
prospect of another enrollment cut (the last occurred for the 2009-2010
academic year, with a reduction of 2,300 students across the UC), these changes represent a momentous step back from the California Master Plan for Higher Education
which, when signed into law in 1960, touted accessibility among its chief goals for the UC.
Fifty years on, the university has never been further from that goal. While the Office of the President is likely cheering last Friday’s announcement as affirmation of continued student interest in the UC, this board firmly believes that its efforts must be focused on lobbying
state legislators to reprioritize higher education. Because with rising fees and dwindling resources, interest in a failing system won’t last forever.
