UCLA to cap resident, nonresident enrollment for 2015-2016 academic year
By Jeong Park
March 3, 2015 2:49 p.m.
This article was updated on March 3 at 6:30 p.m.
The University of California will cap resident enrollment at all campuses, as well as nonresident enrollment at UCLA and UC Berkeley starting next academic year, UC President Janet Napolitano said Tuesday.
However, the UC intends to increase nonresident enrollment at other campuses by about 800 to 1,000 students next year, UC spokeswoman Dianne Klein told the San Jose Mercury News Tuesday.
Napolitano said in the Assembly budget subcommittee meeting she does not think the UC can enroll more in-state students next year because of insufficient state funding. Nonresidents pay about $23,000 more in tuition per year than resident students, and the UC has increased their enrollment in recent years as a source of revenue.
The UC did not respond to multiple requests to comment for this article.
UCLA and UC Berkeley are the two UC campuses with the largest nonresident populations and the most nonresident applicants.
About 58,000 in-state students applied to UCLA for the 2015-2016 academic year, an increase of about 3 percent. The number of UCLA nonresident applicants grew this year by about 4,300, or about 14 percent.
The number of nonresident first-year UC students more than tripled from 2008 to 2013, as the University increased its enrollment to raise revenue amid decreased state funding. At UCLA, nearly 30 percent of first-year students enrolled in fall 2013 were nonresidents.
Napolitano also told the Sacramento Bee Tuesday that her and Gov. Jerry Brown’s discussion of University finance, which includes the possibility of three-year degrees and an expansion of post-graduate online education, is going well.
Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, a Democrat from San Diego and an ex-officio member of the UC Board of Regents, said in a statement Tuesday that she is frustrated by what she sees as the University wrongly using enrollment as a tool for negotiating with the Legislature and Brown.
“The UC’s job is to educate California students, not waitlist them,” Atkins said.
California Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de Leon, a Democrat from Los Angeles, said he thinks the plan makes California students take a back seat to nonresident students at the majority of University campuses.
The UC Board of Regents in January approved the committee of Napolitano and Brown to evaluate the University’s budget.
The board will meet in UC San Francisco from March 17 to March 19, where it is expected to hear a preliminary report from Napolitano and Brown’s committee.
Compiled by Jeong Park, Bruin senior staff.
