State lawmakers on Wednesday called on the University of California system to reserve more space for Californians, especially on its most competitive campuses. Even if it means charging higher tuition to people from out of state.
The number of non-residential students has declined on most UC campuses, falling from 17.7% to 16.3% systemwide over the past two years. Increasing pressure from Congress led the state to plan in the 2021 Budget Act to increase enrollment of Californians in the UC system over five years. The system has enrolled more in-state residents, but not enough to meet goals set by the state.
Rep. David Alvarez, D-San Diego, pointed out that most UC campuses reject more than half of their applicants, including many highly qualified California residents.
“This is disappointing for many Californians,” Alvarez said during a legislative budget hearing on college enrollment in the state.
Rep. Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, shared the story of a constituent who said he graduated with a 4.67 GPA, took 12 AP courses and was captain of the varsity team. She applied to four competitive UC campuses as a political science major, but was rejected by all of them, so she enrolled in an out-of-state school, she said.
“What would you tell this student about why he can’t get to the UC campus of his dreams?” Muratsuchi said.
The report from the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) said it was “disappointing” that at a time of “tremendous demand,” the UC system fell short of its goal of enrolling more in-state students this year by nearly 1,400 full-time students. This will be determined by the Budget Act 2023-24.
Representatives also said they were concerned that non-residents were increasingly outnumbering California residents on some CSU campuses. Non-residents accounted for 17% of enrollment at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and 14.6% of enrollment at San Diego State University in 2022-23.
The LAO report notes that community college enrollment has begun to rebound after seeing sharp declines during the pandemic. But that decline had a domino effect as fewer students transferred to CSU. Enrollment at the University of California is growing, but it is not keeping pace with student interest, as evidenced by the rapidly increasing number of applications. Unique applications for UC systems increased 30% from 2013 to 2022.
Looking to the future, the system, especially community colleges and CSUs, continues to struggle to attract enough students. The report also noted that, as in California's K-12 school system, the number of traditional college-age students is expected to decline in the coming years.
Muratsuchi asked whether it was time to rethink how funds are allocated between UC and CSU campuses, as well as between campuses. He noted growing demand at UC campuses and declining interest at many CSU campuses.
The UC system plans to add 23,000 to 33,000 full-time students by 2030 to address the needs of Californians over the long term. UC Merced and UC Riverside will account for 30 to 35 percent of this growth, while UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego will account for more than half of this growth. The UC system argues that the plan would rely on state funding to pay for the increased costs for Californians.
Seija Virtanen, deputy director for state budget relations in the University of California's Office of the President, said the UC system became more dependent on nonresident students to make up for massive budget cuts during the 2008 Great Recession. Each non-resident student pays nearly three times the tuition. Resident students pay.
For 2024-25, California residents will pay $14,436 in undergraduate tuition, while non-residents will pay $48,636.
“It would be disastrous for our campus if we eliminated these funds,” Virtanen said.
Currently, the state is providing the UC system with an additional $31 million annually to replace funds brought in by non-residents to support more Californians attending UC campuses. Over the past two years, UC has enrolled more than 2,600 non-residents. It also enrolled about 5,900 additional in-state residents, which is nearly 1,400 students short of the state goal.
Alvarez proposed raising tuition for non-residents to cover the state's $31 million annual funding bill. Alvarez used simple math to point out that passing $31 million in tuition to 20,000 nonresident students would increase tuition by about $1,500 per year. The UC system has approximately 36,630 nonresident students. Alvarez proposed a follow-up hearing to discuss increasing nonresident tuition.
In public comments, UC Alumni Regent Keith Ellis agreed that it “is worthwhile” to seriously consider plans to increase nonresident tuition.
CSU, which has seen enrollment declines on most campuses, has budget room to add 24,000 full-time students, according to the LAO report. Of the 23 campuses, only four — Fullerton, Long Beach, San Diego and San Luis Obispo — increased enrollment since fall 2019.
Seven campuses, including Sonoma, Channel Islands, East Bay, Chico, Humboldt, Bakersfield and San Francisco, are enrolling at least 20% fewer students than they did four years ago.
Nathan Evans, CSU's vice president for academic and student affairs, said there are plans to reallocate resources from campuses where enrollment continues to decline to those with higher demand. He said this realignment would have to take place over several years.
“We’re not going to pull the rug out from under any institution,” he said.
Evans noted that changing demographics in rural areas of Northern California and the Bay Area mean enrollment is unlikely to rebound. The number of families with college students is decreasing in this region.
Evans said the CSU system is working in partnership with K-12 districts to increase enrollment, market to and re-engage students who have dropped out.