The UC “Aspirational Plan” for Enrollment Growth
Promise
An article from the UC Newsroom (7/21/2022) presented “a plan to increase enrollment by 23,000 students over the next eight years – the equivalent of adding another campus to the 10-campus system.” This has made headlines across the news outlets.
Reality
With a ~23,000 increase across a system of nine (9) campuses and ~3,900 high schools in California (private, public, and charter; this number somewhat matched my back-of-the-napkin calculation using data pulled from the California Department of Education), that averages out to about 0.65 additional student enrolled at every UC campus (assuming the increase will be evenly distributed across the system) from each California high school by the end of the eighth (8th) year (the UCs plan to reach ~23,000 in eight years). Given that yield varies from UC to UC, a UC with ~40% yield rate, like UCLA, will admit 1-2 additional students from each California high school eight years from now, and a UC with ~10% yield rate, like UCSC, will admit 6-7 additional students from each California high school eight years from now. These are, of course, averages; actual speed and number of enrollment increase will vary by campus (or not happen at all, if the state and the system get into a spat over the budget).
I’m also relatively certain this plan is a way to delay implementation of the nonresident enrollment reduction required by the 2021-2022 budget (someone let slip at the September 2021 UC Counselor Conference that the reduction was not going to happen for Fall 2022; I guess we’ll find out when the UCs release the Fall 2022 admissions data).
Math is not my strong suit, so if anyone comes up with different results or interpretations, please let me know.
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