Letter to the editor-Transfer students not targeted at CSULB

I am writing to comment on the recent opinion piece, “Our View-Transfer hopefuls get brunt of administrative lapse,” in the Feb. 16 Daily Forty-Niner.

Because of rapid growth in student demand in the past few years, Cal State Long Beach and a few other very popular California State University campuses have been enrolling students beyond those for which the state has provided funding. California now has a very severe budget crisis and the CSU is anticipating a 10 percent, or larger, budget reduction for the coming year. We will not have adequate funding for the current number of students.

In planning for next year, CSULB was faced with a stark choice; sharply reduce admissions or face severe shortages of classes. To avoid severe shortages, we must reduce the number of new students for the fall [2009] term. University of California campuses and other CSU campuses will be doing the same.

CSULB’s enrollment principles include maintaining a balance between transfer and freshman admissions. In recent years, CSULB has been more accessible to transfer applicants than freshmen: Freshmen enrollments have been sharply restricted by raising admissions criteria very much above CSU minima, but all transfer applicants meeting basic CSU eligibility have been admitted.

Additionally, freshmen have been admitted only once per year while transfer applicants have been admitted fall and spring. For next year, freshman and transfer admissions will come into better balance with reductions of about 900 freshmen and about 900 transfer applicants achieved by raising admission criteria.

Although community colleges have very diverse populations, transfer students who enroll at CSULB are less diverse ethnically and racially than freshman who enroll at CSULB. This fact comes as a surprise to those unfamiliar with California enrollment patterns.

Fees paid by transfer students and freshmen are the same. There is no fee revenue advantage to the campus derived from enrolling one group over the other. The length of time a student is on campus is not a factor, as strong demand is such that the campus readily enrolls new students to replace those who graduate.

The campus has in recent years had a marked shortage of campus housing, with only about 2,000 beds on a campus of 38,000 students. In response to unmet demand, CSULB acquired additional housing at what will be known as the Residential Learning College opening next year on Pacific Coast Highway. Fully utilizing these beds, which tend to attract freshmen, is an important aspect of campus enrollment planning.

Enrollment planning on a campus as large as CSULB in the economic and demographic environment of Southern California is a very complex process that provokes difficult choices affecting the lives of students. CSULB has a very careful process for considering enrollment options that involves faculty and staff committees, the vice presidents of three university divisions, and the president himself.

These decisions are made after very careful thought with great consideration of the consequences for students — with the welfare of the students on our campus as the primary consideration. Now, more than in any recent year, the choices are extraordinarily difficult, not only at CSULB but across the state. It is a tragedy due to the state budget crisis that the college dreams of some students will not be realized next year.

-David A. Dowell, Ph.D.,
Vice Provost, Director of Strategic Planning and Professor of Psychology