UC might limit freshman enrollment

However, the regents stayed away from the definitive steps that the state's other public university system, California State, proposed earlier this week to reduce freshman admission and enforce earlier than usual deadlines for applications.

At the urging of UC system president Mark G. Yudof, the regents' finance committee backed away even from using the word "freeze" in describing the possible enrollment limits. Yudof said he wanted more time to study the issue and more wiggle room with the Legislature and governor. The panel then adopted a vague motion that called on UC to "curtail" the numbers of freshmen if state funding is not adequate.

"No one wants to curtail the opportunity, but how do we keep absorbing 5,000 more possible students a year when no one is giving us the money to pay for them?" Yudof asked rhetorically. About 37,000 freshmen started at UC campuses this fall.

He said the regents might meet next month to discuss details, and he suggested a first step might be to deny more students a spot at their first-choice campuses and offer them instead places at the 3-year-old Merced campus, which has room to expand.

UC now enrolls about 225,000 undergraduate and graduate students but says it receives state funding for only about 215,000. With the international economic crisis and mounting state deficits, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing a midyear $65-million cut from the $3 billion in state funds UC expected to receive for the 2008-09 school year. And the outlook for next year is grim, officials said.

"If we can hold our own, we will be lucky," regents board chairman Richard Blum told reporters at the meeting at a UC San Francisco facility. "So we are running out of options."

Nevertheless, the regents' finance committee approved what was described as a very optimistic budget request for next year, seeking about $530 million more in state general funds, to stake out an early negotiating stance in Sacramento. That plan would include a 9.4% rise, or about $662 more a year, in in-state undergraduate student fees, to a total average of about $8,670. The cost of room, board, books and other expenses can add $12,000 to $14,000 more. Regents probably will not vote on the controversial fee proposal until spring.