<p>Applications soar at University of California campuses</p>
<p>By Lisa Leff
ASSOCIATED PRESS</p>
<p>4:40 p.m. January 29, 2008</p>
<p>SAN FRANCISCO Each of the nine University of California campuses received a record number of undergraduate applications for the coming fall, when anticipated reductions in state funding may result in students paying more for their education.</p>
<p>About 121,000 students already have applied to a UC school for the fall 2008 semester, nearly 58 percent more than applied a decade ago, according to preliminary numbers released Tuesday by the university system.</p>
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There is clearly a very strong demand among California students for a UC education, said Susan Wilbur, UC's director of undergraduate admissions.</p>
<p>UCLA received the most applications with 70,328, followed by UC Berkeley (60,709), UC San Diego (57,116), UC Santa Barbara (55,871) and UC Irvine (51,935).</p>
<p>Every campus is experiencing unprecedented demand, including ones that historically have had a harder time attracting students. For example, UC Santa Cruz and UC Riverside, which saw applications drop off slightly last year, are fielding 13.4 percent and 7 percent more respectively.</p>
<p>The system's newest campus, UC Merced, had 10,180 applicants, 16 percent more than when it was enrolling its first class for the 2005-06 school year. UC Davis, with 48,653 applicants, had the next-biggest surge with 6,342, or 15 percent more than a year earlier.</p>
<p>For the UC system as a whole, the pool includes nearly 26,000 transfer students and 95,000 students seeking admission as freshmen, an increase of 9 percent over last year. The university accepted 85,509 of the 96,569 students who eventually sought spots either as freshmen or as transfers for 2007-08, 49,963 of whom ended up enrolling.</p>
<p>Although a boom in the nation's college-aged population partially explains the increases, university officials said it does not account for all of it. Freshmen applications from seniors at public high schools in California rose more than 6 percent, while public high schools are expected to graduate about 3 percent more students come June.</p>
<p>More students are meeting the eligibility requirements for the university, Wilbur said. They are completing the required subject courses, taking the required tests and getting the necessary grades.</p>
<p>Wilbur said UC officials were gratified to see greater numbers of black and Hispanic students expressing interest. So far, the system has gotten applications from 4,094 black students seeking admission as freshmen 16 percent more than last year. Applications also have come in from 17,614 Hispanic students 18 percent more than last year.</p>
<p>UC Provost Wyatt Hume said that while the university's popularity was good news for the state, the avalanche of applications comes at a difficult time for college campuses that are scheduled to start sending out acceptance letters in March.</p>
<p>To close a projected a budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed funding the system by $400 million less than its governing board estimates it needs for the 2008-09 academic year to accommodate enrollment growth of 2.5 percent and other student services, Hume said.</p>
<p>Our very strong desire is still to provide a place of admission to every student who meets our eligibility, but we also have to look very soberly at our options, he said.</p>
<p>One option the Board of Regents is likely to consider when it next meets in March is raising tuition by 7 percent. California residents currently pay $5,850 per year to attend a UC campus as undergraduates, while out-of-state residents pay $19,068.</p>