In response to continued cuts and budget constraints, the University of California Board of Regents are continuing to consider increasing nonresident undergraduate student enrollment, with a cap of 10 percent of all admissions. Currently, only 8.8 percent of all students enrolled in UC are out-of-state students.
Each out-of-state student enrolled brings in an additional $23,000 to the UC. Nathan Brostrom, executive vice president of business operations, also pointed out that an increase in out-of-state students also means an increase of in-state students, because of the extra money provided from out-of-state student tuition.
Regent Bonnie Reiss as well as Student Regent Jonathan Stein and Student Regent Designate Cinthia Flores made vocal their concerns that in-state students might be denied admission to allow out-of-state student enrollment. Student Regent Stein was also sure to point out that while the Committee on Education was proposing a system-wide cap of 10 percent of all out-of-state students enrolled in the UC, campuses like UCLA currently have upwards of 30 percent of their student population as out-of-state students.
“If we’re talking about eventually moving the cap to 10 percent or 15 percent, if we were talking about an even spread at each campus I think the student regents could get behind it,” said Stein. “We’re not talking about an even spread, we’re talking very large percentage at some campuses and a very small percentage at others.”
Regents such as Regent Eddie Island continued to oppose the increase, noting that he could not see the non-fiscal benefit to enrolling more out-of-state students. However, the increase saw supporters the likes of Gov. Brown and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“The world we’re living in means not only are we competing with cheap labor but with cheap geniuses,” said Newsom. “We have got to be equally aggressive keeping that [out-of-state students] here. “
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