CSU
enrollment increases
By Kyle Cavaness
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
Enrollment has increased across the California State University system this fall
after a two-year decrease, according to the CSU Office of the Chancellor.
The total population for the CSU system has reached 405,292 students this fall,
after a budget decline caused the population to drop to 397,048 in fall 2004.
The 8,244 student increase occurred at 14 of the 23 CSU campuses, with the largest
increases taking place locally. Cal State Long Beach gained 1,068 students and
Cal State Fullerton increased by 2,296.
Other increases included 1,902 more students at Cal State Northridge, 931 at
San Jose State, and a 554-student increase at Cal State Channel Islands, the
newest school in the system.
CSU administration expects 10,000 new students by the end of the calendar year,
as they arrive through winter and the spring semesters.
“ We were able to provide access to more students this year, thanks to
increased funding provided by the governor’s Compact with the CSUs,” said
Chancellor Charles B. Reed.
The Compact was a partnership the CSU and University of California systems created
with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger after several years of budget cuts; approximately
half a billion dollars in funding for state schools was cut between 2002 and
2005.
The governor promised the state school systems a 3 percent increase to their
base budgets every year, as well as a 2.5 percent increase for enrollment through
the 2010-11 school year.
“ Our outreach to high schools and community colleges is continuing,” Reed
said, “and we will be working to enroll more students during the coming
spring and winter terms on campuses with available space.”
“ Campuses with available space” have become a key issue as enrollment
climbs. This year marks the first time CSUF has had more students than CSULB—35,040
Titans to 34,547 49ers. This is in part due to CSUF’s new satellite
campus in El Toro, which allows for more space and provides a local university
option for the growing population in southern Orange County.
CSU students seem to prefer going to schools closer to home. All of the top CSUs
are near large population centers.
The top three centers are Fullerton, Long Beach and Northridge.
Transfer students are overwhelmingly from local community colleges. At CSULB
this semester more than one in four transfer students came from either Long Beach
City College or Orange Coast College. Also, in the fall 2005 semester, over 1,000
students transferred from Fullerton College to CSUF.
“ A lot of CSU students don’t leave home for four years to go to
college,” said Colleen Bentley-Adler, public affairs representative for
the Office of the
Chancellor.
While students who want to stay local are a plus for CSU schools with large population
bases, it poses an obstacle for those in more rural areas. The enrollment of
CSU Humboldt, located in Northern California with a population of less than 10,000
students, was one of the nine CSU campuses that dropped its enrollment in fall
2005.
The CSU administration expects to make up the losses in coming semesters, and
plans to promote these schools more as the budget allows.
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