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<p>The expansion of ELC may just result in more offers of admission to Merced (because ELC does not guarantee admission to the campus of the student’s choice), which is the campus most likely to be underused.</p>
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<p>If really no one is willing to attend, then closing or mothballing it could make sense economically, as it would substantially reduce the fixed costs (though there could be political problems with that).</p>
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<p>Private? Like USC? (Berkeley is slightly smaller than USC, while UCLA is slightly larger.)</p>
<p>There are no good solutions to the problem, since all of them (e.g. effective privatization) have their drawbacks. But making maximum use of existing capacity that carries a fixed cost makes sense, regardless of what the overall strategy is.</p>