UC Berkeley Avoids Enrollment Freeze
In the midst of the enrollment freeze, Berkeley finds different ways to admit new students!
Looking Forward: Can a compromise be made to benefit UC Berkeley and the community?
Read more college tips on our blog!
New Legislation Overturns UC Berkeley’s Enrollment Freeze
Since 2017, the community-based organization Save Berkeley’s Neighborhood has worked tirelessly on their campaign to improve the quality of life for residents, protect the environment, and push the city and UC Berkeley to have better housing options for Berkeley students. Recently, the organization filed a lawsuit against the university stating that the increasing enrollment rate has led to various community and environmental issues to neighborhoods surrounding UC Berkeley.
According to Phil Bokovoy, the president of SBN, the rising enrollment rates and the housing facilities at UC Berkeley are not enough for the amount of students that are admitted. Since 2005, UC Berkeley pledged to add 2,500 beds to the campus to combat the increasing student population; nearly two decades later, there were reportedly only 700 new beds added. The university’s inability to provide students with proper housing, has resulted in UC Berkeley students searching for housing in the community. This influx of students – typically from out of state – has contributed to the housing crisis in the neighboring communities. This has led to the displacement of low-income renters, increased homelessness, additional burden on police, fire and emergency services, and growth in trash and noise throughout neighborhoods surrounding the campus.
Leading up to the new legislation (which benefits UC Berkeley and incoming applicants) Save Berkeley’s Neighborhood tried multiple times in the past to limit the amount of students that Berkeley can admit. In the court decision involving UC Berkeley, the supreme court made the decision to limit the amount of students that UC Berkeley can accept, to decrease the enrollment pool significantly. The ruling by the California Supreme Court follows an appellate court finding in favor of SBN that sued the institution, alleging that it was causing housing and environmental problems in the area. After the appellate court ruling, UC Berkeley tried to appeal this decision, but the California Supreme Court denied Berkeley's appeal for their enrollment cap.
Save Berkeley’s Neighborhood Stance
After the ruling, SBN [Save Berkeley’s Neighborhood] put out a statement saying,
“While we are pleased that the Supreme Court has upheld the trial court’s imposition of a temporary pause on enrollment growth pending UC’s compliance with completing an adequate environmental analysis of enrollment growth, we’d like to assure deserving California high school students that we are as disappointed as they are that UC has tried to use them as pawns in UC’s attempts to avoid mitigating the impacts from the massive enrollment increases over the past few years.
By creating a tremendous housing shortage in Berkeley, the Regents have made it impossible for many students, particularly students from lower income families, to attend Berkeley and the data show that Pell Grant recipients have fallen from 34% to 26%, with the housing crisis a major contributor to the decline.
We have offered many times to settle our case in exchange for UC Berkeley’s agreement to a legally binding commitment to increase housing before they increase enrollment. We have been rebuffed every time, most recently by Chancellor Christ in early December.”
While the enrollment cap was still in place, the ruling stipulated that Berkeley had to maintain admissions rates from the 2020-21 admissions cycle. This meant that the university's student enrollment must remain at 42,347 for the Fall 2022 application cycle-and upcoming years- which would cause the institution to lose millions of dollars in tuition and reject qualified students. This verdict caused the admission of 3000 fewer undergraduate students to UC Berkeley. By freezing enrollment at that level, the university, which is already one of the most selective in the country, would have 3,050 fewer seats for incoming first-year students and transfer students in the fall of 2022 than it had projected. As a result Berkeley created a contingency plan, which offered 1,500 students the opportunity to still be admitted but attend Berkeley online for a semester or two.
UC Berkeley tries to find a compromise after Enrollment Freeze Ruling
According to UC Berkeley, the verdict is "devastating news for the thousands of students who have worked so hard for and have earned a seat in our fall 2022 class. Our fight on behalf of every one of these students continues.”
An article by Berkeleyside explains the actions that UC Berkeley is taking to combat the ruling and prevent a loss of student enrollment.
“UC Berkeley announced on March 4 that it has devised a plan to keep numbers low on campus for the fall semester in order to comply with the freeze while maximizing enrollment. Berkeley would ask 1,000 first-year students to complete their first semester online and 641 out-of-state students to postpone their admission until January 2023.
Only 4,370 California residents and 509 out-of-state freshmen would be allowed to enter the university. As a result, candidates to graduate schools of engineering, business, and law would bear the brunt of the enrollment freeze. Cal calculated that it would award 400 fewer slots to those institutions than it had planned.”
New Bill that Benefits Berkeley
The decision to implement an enrollment freeze would have impacted the UC system and the acceptance rate for universities across the country. A possible outcome to this ruling would be lower admissions rates for UC Berkeley (and other highly selective schools) while more students continue to apply to these universities.
After the state Legislature intervened with Senate Bill 118, UC Berkeley is no longer in danger of losing students due to a court-ordered enrollment cap this year.
Despite resistance by SBN, the Senate Bill 118–passed on March 14th–modifies how a California environmental law applies to colleges, was passed unanimously by both houses of the California Legislature on 69 to 0 in the Assembly and 33 to 0 in the Senate. Save Berkeley's Neighborhoods president, Phil Bokovoy, an alumna of UC Berkeley described the bill as "poorly worded and misleading." He encouraged senators not to pass SB 118 at a Monday session, claiming that UC Berkeley does not have the ability to manage more students on campus.
“Additional students will put more pressure on the local housing market and increase rents for everybody, hitting low-income students and low-income nonstudent families the hardest,” Bokovoy said. “We don’t want students to have to live in cars, campers and hotel rooms like they’ve been doing in Santa Barbara, and more students will result in more crowded classes and stretched student support services, making it hard to graduate in four years. We’d like to see the Legislature instead increase enrollment only after UC has increased housing for their students.”
On the other hand, lawmakers and UC Berkeley chancellor Carol Christ noted the importance of expanding, not reducing, access to education.
Christ expressed her gratitude to lawmakers in an emailed statement. “On behalf of the thousands of students who will benefit from today’s vote, I want to thank California’s legislators for their quick and effective response. At Berkeley we are, and will remain, committed to continuing our efforts to address a student housing crisis through new construction of below market housing. We look forward to working in close, constructive collaboration with our partners in Sacramento in order to advance our shared interest in providing California students with an exceptional experience and education.”
Looking Forward
The Senate Bill 118 has allowed UC Berkeley to admit the students that they were prepared to lose. It is important that students are not robbed of higher education, especially if they work hard to ensure that they are college ready and a great candidate for schools like UC Berkeley.
Similarly, it is important to take note of the environmental issues that mass enrollment can cause. The California Justice Goodwin Liu sums up the complexity of this case and the negative impact any decision would have on students or the environment.
Goodwin states, “It does not serve the university's long-term interest to negatively impact the local environment, and an outcome that negatively impacts the educational future of thousands of students would not appear to serve the long-term interest of litigants like SBN [Save Berkeley's Neighborhoods]," Liu said. "It is not too late to find a solution that mitigates the local community's environmental concerns without leaving 3,050 of our young people behind.”
As more students attend UC Berkeley, pressure should be placed on the university to not only admit more students, but to provide adequate housing options for the students and work with the community to find a compromise that benefits both students and the environment.
For more information on the college admissions process, and navigating college, check out our blog: https://www.socraticsummeracademy.com/blog
