The University of California will cap out-of-state enrollment at current levels next year for several of its campuses, including Berkeley and Los Angeles, UC President Janet Napolitano told a newspaper on Tuesday.
“It’s good to have a mix of international and out-of-state students on the campuses. That’s the world these students are going to graduate into,” Napolitano told The Sacramento Bee’s editorial board. “The question is how much of a good thing is it, and how much is an appropriate number?”
In November 2014, State Assembly Speaker Toni G. Atkins (D-San Diego) had issued several plans to avoid a UC tuition hike, and one of those ideas was to cap 2014-15 out-of-state enrollment levels.
The UC system has faced a slew of state budget cuts over the last several years, and so, the entire public university system tried to recruit outside California. Out-of-state undergraduates must pay about $36,000 a year in tuition to attend UC, compared to Californians who pay $13,200, according to the admissions office.
But as the Sacramento Bee reported, nonresident enrollment has reached about 15 percent systemwide, and more than 20 percent at the flagship campuses in Berkeley and Los Angeles, the university has come under increasing criticism for squeezing out the students the system was mandated to teach beginning in the 1950s.
In January, Gov. Jerry Brown added an out-of-state enrollment cap to his budget proposal that would grant UC a 4 percent increase in state funding. Since then, Napolitano and Brown have met several times as a “committee of two” to discuss the university’s finances and a controversial proposed tuition increase.
As of spring 2015, the University of California has 10 campuses, a combined student body of 238,700 students.
