Bad strategy for enrollment

It's obvious that this campus needs, and can handle, more class sections and students. There is plenty of room to do everything but park on this campus.

Cal State Long Beach is not offering enough upper division classes. Because of this, progressing toward a degree is like trying to hit out of a sandtrap with a putter - it can be done if you have patience and get extremely lucky.

Campus reports estimate the time frame for an average student on this campus to graduate to be about six years. Reasons for this vary from not being able to enroll in needed classes because of competition for seats to some classes being offered only every other semester. Figure in rising costs to attend college with an anemic job market and many students find the benefits of a college education to not be worth six years of frustration.

This may be why enrollment is down. The final figures for this semester show the campus to be less than last semester by the equivalent of 339 full-time students.

If this trend continues, CSULB will not reach its target enrollment of 19,208 full time equivalent students next semester and may be penalized. The university's solution to this dilemma was to extend the admissions deadline and to continue to admit students who are not ready for academics at the university level. If you think it takes students a long time to graduate now, wait until these bodies are third-year seniors. That is, of course, unless they drop out.

CSULB shouldn't cater to these students at the expense of offering those courses that offer a college education - the upper division curriculum. Invest more cash in additional upper division courses and in increasing positions for faculty to teach them.

Currently, the university's focus on insuring there are enough remedial courses for the insufficiently educated is sending the signal that our campus is academically weak. Without a strong upper division curriculum it is.

The administration needs to show prospective students that it can offer them an affordable education that doesn't have to eat six years of their lives.