What are the implications for prospective students of UC Berkeley slashing enrollment by 1/3?

The University of California, Berkeley is expecting to lose at least $57 million in tuition after the Supreme Court of California upheld a lower court order forcing it to freeze enrollment at 2020-2021 levels last Thursday.

Earlier this year, the University of California had its sights set on receiving an annual 5% budget increase for the next five fiscal years under California Governor Gavin Newsom’s new state budget proposal, which would serve to bring budget stability to UC by increasing enrollment and expanding college access and affordability for students throughout the state.

Prior to the state Supreme Court’s decision to keep enrollment numbers down by one-third for the 2022-2023 academic year, Newsom filed an amicus brief urging for an immediate stay on the decision. “The State, consistent with the Governor’s budget priorities, has made historic investments in higher education, including a total of $47.1 billion in the last enacted budget. Expanding college access is the keystone of the higher education vision…” he wrote. “The Court of Appeal’s decision would undermine these longstanding priorities of the State...”

21,000 applicants are typically offered admission to the nation’s #1 public university (as ranked by Forbes). According to Berkeley’s original estimate, this number will need to be reduced by at least 5,100 for the 2022-2023 admissions cycle, sinking the number of students enrolled in-person by at least 3,050 from the originally planned 9,500. New estimates suggest that the enrollment will have to be reduced by 2,629.

In a public statement, UC Berkeley communicated that the enrollment restriction and commensurate tuition loss would “impact our ability to deliver instruction, provide financial aid for low and middle-income students, adequately fund critical student services, and maintain our facilities.” According to Newsom, lost revenue would also obstruct UC undergraduates’ “pathway for debt-free education,” as it would cause a reduction in the number and types of courses offered, lengthen students’ time-to-degree and consequently “add tens of thousands of dollars to their college education.” This adds insult to the already injurious drop in Pell Grant recipients from 34% to 26% at UC Berkeley, further harming students who come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

To mitigate these cascading effects on prospective students, Chancellor Carol Christ and Provost Catherine P. Koshland outlined a series of enrollment strategies for a group of at least 1,650 incoming students. More than 1,000 of them will be asked to enroll completely online for the 2022 fall semester and then invited to matriculate in-person in January, and about 650 students may be asked to defer enrollment until January.

Additionally, the University plans to prioritize in-state residents, who are slated to comprise 90% of the incoming class and will effectively reduce non-resident undergraduate enrollment from 24% overall to roughly 10%.?

This is not only a severe blow to out-of-state and international students who now have to compete even harder to attend the world-class institution, but the plan also has rippling ramifications for the California residents the university is aiming to prioritize in the first place. According to UC Berkeley’s Estimated Student Budget sheet, non-California natives pay over three times more in tuition than their CA resident counterparts, thanks to the $29,754 “nonresidential supplemental tuition” that inflates tuition costs from $14,254 to a staggering $44,008 per year. With tuition and fees charged to enrolled students representing approximately 34% of UC Berkeley’s total budget, accepting fewer out-of-state students means taking an additional budget cut on top of the millions of dollars already drained from total enrollment restrictions. Quality of instruction, aid and services for both in-state and out-of-state students alike will only head downhill from here.

As students look to create, develop and revise their college lists, it is critical that they are aware of how litigation will disrupt their quality of education and ask themselves about how it might impact their overall college experience. Am I willing to spend half of one of the most formative years of my life on Zoom, away from my peers? Will deferring for an entire semester leave me less prepared to reenter the academic world? Will I be okay with matriculating at a university that has been openly honest about how losing millions of dollars will affect virtually every aspect of campus life?

Determining college-fit from an honest and holistic perspective is of utmost importance. At the end of the day, students should ask themselves whether the implications of this financial loss are enough to discount the school’s reputed history of groundbreaking research, Nobel Prize-winning professors and semesterly Llamapaloozas. As UC Berkeley continues to find solutions to an enrollment freeze that will harm its operations and student body, prospective students should do their due diligence and make informed decisions throughout the college application process.