<p>As states cutback on enrollments, I have been thinking about what affect that will have on admissions decisions. One proposal in our state is to cut 10,000 student slots from the state university system. Will those cutbacks come from the bottom stats group at each college, or will the colleges try to keep the same distribution by passing over some top students, etc. who might otherwise be admitted? Anyone heard anything?</p>
<p>In which State do you reside? I’m actually seeing a different trend in most states. That is, oversubscribing at many Publics to bridge budget shortfalls. I have even seen predictions of housing shortages as well as doubles being turned into triples, singles being turned into doubles, etc.</p>
<p>It only makes more sense that more students mean more revenue and that is one way to bridge the budget gap. Furthermore, many are predicting yields to go up at the Publics, which will mean more students. </p>
<p>In a time of decreased revenues, the last thing a State wants to do is cut students unless they are talking in terms of shutting down complete schools.</p>
<p>“In a time of decreased revenues, the last thing a State wants to do is cut students unless they are talking in terms of shutting down complete schools.”</p>
<p>In CA, they did cut enrollment at the UC system and there is no plan to shut down any of the UCs (despite some argument that UC Merced should not have been built at all but, instead, they should have expanded at campuses where there is space to do so and no special coastal regs (e.g. expand at places like Irvine and Davis, but not Cal, LA or Santa Barbara.)</p>
<p>Keeping the same distribution while cutting spaces be means of passing over top applicants is a recipe for mediocrity that would cause a huge hue and cry in most any state I can think of. idad, please don’t tell me this is nonsense coming from Sacramento AGAIN!</p>
<p>No its not CA, and I have not seen any public announcement on how students are selected, but there are special interest groups who are concerned that the move favors the top kids and some on the middle/lower boarder line will not be served.</p>
<p>Sounds like a terrible proposal for your state’s future. I would presume the cuts would have to come from the bottom- making each school more selective as the students who would have gone to the top state school would displace students at the lesser schools. The borderline students will go without the college degree- just like they did in previous generations. Many jobs now requiring a college degree could revert to the none required like they did before so many college grads were available. There are students who attempt a 4 year college who would be best served by getting other, technical, training. This may be better than increasing tuition to maintain the college enrollments, the fallout then would be parental finances instead of student ability.</p>
<p>there’s no way a sate school can “cut off” its top in-state student. How in the world would they justify that?
Many states have special scholarships that are aimed at keeping the top students in their state (even if they choose to go to a private school).</p>
<p>nngmm: It’s called “holistic admissions” and “building a class.” </p>
<p>wis75: To compound the problem, the community colleges are already working at above capacity and there are cuts proposed there as well. And given the economy, fewer can afford OOS or private.</p>
<p>If this came to pass, my guess is that some of the top students would either go private, if they can, or attend a state regional university rather than the flagship. If, on the other hand, the flagship takes most of the top students, the students closer to the bottom would try a CC, but many would simply not go to college. I can se both sides of the argument.</p>
<p>The common way a university can improve it finances is to increase enrollment while maintaining faculty/admin/staff levels or eliminating entire academic programs which will reduce both staffing and students. In these financially stressed times it might be prudent to ask prospective colleges if they are planning to eliminate departments which you are interested in, particularly if it is an uncommon one such as Japanese or astronomy. Not many would consider eliminating the biggies like chem or history.</p>
<p>At some colleges, astronomy has joined in with the physics department, perhaps to protect itself and/or provide the interdisiplinary approach that seems to be a big selling point at top tier universities. I was rather surprised, during our tour of Berkeley, to find that at some time in the history of the school, chemistry got enough clout to be a college of just that, chemistry. At most places, it a department in something like the college of letters and sciences.</p>
<p>Even before this recession, many unis were closing down undersubscribed language departments.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>Such as USC and their German dept? :(</p>
<p>So far rumor has it that it’s gotten harder to get into the flagship. (To the extent that SUNY even has one.)</p>