UC Berkeley, one of the nation’s most highly sought after campuses, may be forced to slash its fall 2022 freshman class by one-third, or 3,050 seats, and forgo $57 million in lost tuition under a recent court order to freeze enrollment, the university announced Monday.The university’s projection came in response to a ruling last August by an Alameda County Superior Court judge who ordered an enrollment freeze and upheld a Berkeley neighborhood group’s lawsuit that challenged the environmental impact of the university’s expansion plan. Many neighbors are upset by the impact of enrollment growth on traffic, noise, housing prices and the natural environment. The University of California Board of Regents appealed the ruling and asked that the order to freeze enrollment be stayed while the appellate process proceeds. Last week, an appellate court denied that request. The regents on Monday appealed that judgment to the California Supreme Court.“This court mandated decrease in enrollment would be a tragic outcome for thousands of students who have worked incredibly hard to gain admission to Berkeley,” UC Berkeley said in a statement. “If left intact, the court’s unprecedented decision would have a devastating impact on prospective students, university admissions, campus operations, and UC Berkeley’s ability to serve California students by meeting the enrollment targets set by the State of California.”The campus said the loss of $57 million in tuition revenue would reduce available financial aid, squeeze campus operations and possibly limit class offerings.The furor underscores the enormous, conflicting and growing pressures on UC over enrollment. Legislators, families and equity advocates are pushing campuses to increase seats for California students, particularly those who are still underrepresented in the nation’s premier public university research system. Many policymakers say the state’s economic future is at stake, as California is facing a looming shortage of 1.1 million workers with bachelor’s degrees by 2030 to meet its workforce needs. Meanwhile, demand for UC seats continues to rise. As more California high school students meet UC eligibility requirements and barriers to entry fall, such as UC’s 2020 elimination of SAT and ACT scores for admission, UC applications are skyrocketing. The record-shattering applications for fall 2021, however, led to major heartbreak in the spring, when campuses sent out acceptance letters: Although the UC admitted 132,353 freshman applicants, an 11% increase over the previous year, more than 71,000 were denied admission, including nearly 44,000 Californians. Admission rates fell at seven of the nine undergraduate campuses — dropping at UCLA to 9.9% for California freshmen applicants. And future trends look bleak. The number of students who meet UC and California State University admission requirements but can’t enroll in a four-year institution because of a shortfall of seats could nearly double from about 73,000 students in 2018-19 to 144,000 by 2030, according to a study by the College Futures Foundation.Berkeley has been ordered to freeze student enrollment at the 2020-21 level of 42,347. To get to that number — which is 3,050 fewer seats than planned for fall 2022 — the campus said it would need to reduce admission offers by least 5,100 to account for the share who decline the acceptance. Berkeley argues that freezing enrollment at 2020 levels is inappropriate because the pandemic caused it to drop “dramatically and unexpectedly” that year as students took time off.The ruling by Judge Brad Seligman came in a lawsuit by Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods, a local community group that has filed numerous legal challenges to campus growth plans since 2018, including the latest project to add academic space and about 30 beds for graduate students. The group asserted that UC Berkeley failed to consider reducing enrollment to avoid adverse environmental impacts and, since 2005, has added 11,000 students beyond the 2020 target laid out in the campus long-range development plan. The group said most of Berkeley’s excess enrollment has consisted of out-of-state students, who pay higher tuition, and that the burgeoning numbers are taxing the city’s resources, including housing, police and fire services, water and park space, and contributing to noise and trash. Berkeley, in its environmental impact study, argued there was no need to consider reductions because enrollment growth in previous years had had “no significant environmental impacts.” Seligman disagreed. He also ordered UC regents to void for now their approval of the campus project to create more academic space and housing for faculty, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students.
UC Berkeley may be forced by court to cut 3,000 freshman seats
