Cal State closes 2009-10 spring admissions because of budget crisis

In a move to cut enrollment because of the state budget deficit, the 23-campus Cal State University system announced Thursday that, with few exceptions, it will not allow students to start at the university next spring. Cal State usually admits about 35,000 freshmen, undergraduate transfers and graduate students in the spring, officials said.

Making it even tougher for potential mid-year starters, the seven Cal State campuses on the quarter system or with a winter term stopped taking applications last week for first-time winter enrollment. So, any slow-moving potential applicant for the 2009-10 school year is now out of luck, except in those cases where Cal States maintain spring transfer agreements with community colleges, said spokeswoman Claudia Keith.

"We are looking at any way we can to reduce enrollment," Keith said. She said administrators hope to cut Cal State’s overall enrollment of 450,000 students by 40,000 over the next two years as a way to cope with a shortfall in state funding.

Cal State system chancellor Charles B. Reed said this week he would seek an additional student fee hike of 15% to 20% for this fall on top of a 10% increase already approved. The Cal State Board of Trustees is scheduled to vote later this month on the extra fee hike and other austerity measures such as a two-day-a-month furlough plan for university employees.

Larry Gordon

Comments

[A Member of the Board]

Charles B Reed is the worst administrator the Cal State System has ever had. He does NOT care about higher education and the future of the State. He has consistently trashed both the faculty and the students in the name of making money for the system. Higher education means skilled workers for our future, but this fact seems to have escaped him.

[Outraged]

Charles Reed is not so much an administrator but a puppet. You can't count on him to do anything but undermine the Cal State system.

[lindsay]

please, please take all international students! Their money will help bring in funding for the state!!! International students pay more without taking away from the state's budget. Please, please admit them!!!!