Amid impaction, officials set priorities for enrollment

With Cal State University Chancellor Charles Reed’s executive order declaring a system-wide impaction, all of the 23 campuses will now be admitting students based on a criteria that prioritizes existing students first and new, out-of-area students last.

The goal of the impaction is to curtail overall enrollment by 10,000 students — from 460,000 to 450,000 — for the 2009-10 school year.

In a conference call with student media Friday, Reed said the enrollment cut was made because the CSU had been taking on 10,000 students who were not funded for by the state.

His executive order was made to cut the number of students back to the levels of actual funding.

“Better for us to serve students paying the fess … than to over-enroll,” Reed said.

Reed said they would focus on providing real access to students by providing adequate amounts of class sections, and student services like advising and counseling.

Similarly, CSULB President F. King Alexander said local students would not be as affected by impaction as compared to students from out of the area. Only students outside of CSULB’s tier 1 area will have higher academic expectations. However, expectations have always been higher for out-of-area students, Alexander said.

The admittance criteria for the 2009-10 school year will provide access first to existing students and second to community college students fully eligible for transferring to the CSUs. Third priority is first-time freshman coming from each CSU’s respective service areas, and fourth priority is out-of-area students.

Despite the university’s best efforts, classes have had to endure cuts. Summer school classes were most affected, when 37 percent of all classes were cut.

“These cuts are bad state policy and to build a stronger California, we need to invest more, increase taxes in the right areas and build the human capital infrastructure,” Alexander said.

Enrollment goals for each campus will be determined by the number of students at each school attending beyond what is funded.

For CSULB, that means 1,500 student spots will have to be cut for 2009-10.

Reed said schools like Humboldt State that have levels of enrollment very close to the actual level of funding will have to scale back on enrollment only slightly.

Six to 10 Cal State universities have moved up their application deadline to Nov. 30 in response to the impaction, Reed said.

The CSU has posted two videos on YouTube.com aimed at reminding prospective students of impending deadlines and has set up csulbmentor.edu to inform students on the application process.

Both CSU officials and students have agreed that the state is not being fair to the CSU system, as was seen with the large groups of students and faculty who came to Long Beach to protest outside the CSU board of trustees meeting Tuesday.

“Unfortunately, these issues were not created by us and must be addressed in Sacramento,” Alexander said. “This is not a time for pledges and ideology, but a time for practicality and progressive solutions.”