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news
Fall enrollment
expected to rise
By Sharon Christensen
Summer Forty-Niner
Student enrollment
at Cal State Long Beach is expected to continue rising this
fall, reaching beyond 33,000 students. This may lead to continued
restrictions on admission, said Armando Contreras executive
assistant to CSULB President Robert Maxson.
After limiting
the admission period for incoming freshman to one month and
more strictly enforcing admission standards, the university
may seek to expand the President's Office's "enrollment
management" plan to raise admission requirements, Contreras
said.
"We've been
at a pretty high rate of growth for a number of years,"
Contreras said. "We've been growing at 5 to 6 percent
for the last four to five years. We're trying to keep [enrollment]
around 33,000 to 34,000."
Although exact
numbers of students won't be available until CSULB conducts
a census in September, Contreras said he expects student enrollment
to continue to increase, even after the university complied
with recommendations already required by law to decrease enrollment.
"The shortened
admission period has been in effect for two years and what
we've seen is we've had an increase in applications,"
Contreras said. "That really, in fact, hasn't helped
in our enrollment management. We've done all the things that
we're required to do."
Another method
that has proved successful at limiting student enrolment has
been to completely close admissions to lower division transfer
students. Also, Contreras said, the university has made scheduling
changes to maximize the campus' already existing facilities,
i.e. added more Monday, Wednesday and Friday classes and more
classes that meet on Fridays only.
"Now that
we've done all those things, we're still growing," Contreras
said. However, more changes need to be made.
One possible solution,
and one that Maxson mentioned in the past, is to raise admission
standards by applying to the Cal State University Chancellor's
Office for campus impaction.
"We have submitted
a couple of proposals," Contreras said. "All the
things that we've done have been part of that discussion."
Construction to
accommodate the increased number of students is not considered
a viable solution to the problem according to Contreras, although
expansion of a science building on Upper Campus has already
started.
"In the short
term we're not going to rely on construction," he said,
adding that the university does have a master construction
plan that includes replacement of the Language Arts and Faculty
Office buildings in the coming years. "We'll have to
focus more short term on better utilizing classroom space."
With freshman enrollment
still swelling, dormitory overcrowding has also become an
issue. President Maxson has mentioned building more dorms
in the past.
"Freshmen
live in dorms," Maxson said at his State of the University
speech in August 1999. "Their moms and dads want them
to live in dorms," he added when he proposed construction
of rooms for 500 more students.
For now, Contreras
said, the university will have to wait and see this year's
numbers before deciding to build.
"Space is
at a premium," he said. "Also, as we start to decrease
in enrollment, we kind of want to be cautious not to overbuild.
We're taking a slow approach to that one. We want to make
sure we have a continuing demand.
"We will make
a decision based on the enrollment figures. If our growth
has slowed to 1 percent, we might re-evaluate the right course
of action.
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