An appeals court ruling may require UC Berkeley to cap enrollment at 2020-21 levels, forcing the university to send out 5100 fewer undergraduate admission offers next month, unless the California Supreme Court intervenes:
socalmom007 will be very happy.
the president of Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods, [said in a court document] that Cal admits so many out-of-state students that it could reduce those numbers — and hold the number of graduate students to their 2019 numbers — and still admit all the California students who apply.
This should be interesting. On the one hand, housing is truly horrible in and around Berkeley and increasing enrollment without a plan to handle it is irresponsible. Otoh, slicing out, what, half of an incoming class has huge effects budget-wise and operationally, and on the other UCs admissions numbers (figure those students will go elsewhere in state). I sense a baby is about to be split.
Eta: curious how Alameda’s very very very pro-tenant culture fits into this.
Should be interesting. Can see other communities doing the same if this ruling stands.
Seems the path forward for the UCs to serve more students is online, plenty of their classes are online/hybrid now.
If they wait too long they won’t be able to keep up with the behemoth online providers. ASU local in LA and DC is just getting started.
But graduate admission offers have already gone out. So they will still have to cut this year’s instate admissions significantly if this ruling stands.
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Seems like Berkeley isn’t being a good neighbor. This statement is laughable…16 years?!
UC Berkeley has plans to build 11,730 beds in the next 16 years but that would still leave 70% of Cal students to find a place to sleep outside the Cal system.
Why should the residents around Berkeley bear the brunt of increasing enrollment rather than the university?
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Berkeley has clearly been incompetent in handling this. They waited for months to appeal, presumably thinking that a settlement with the city council would be sufficient for the NIMBYs, but those people couldn’t be mollified.
But they have a problem that any building they do want to undertake will also be opposed by residents. There was a famous case in 2020 of Robert Reich opposing development of new housing in the neighborhood:
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You mean city of Berkeley residents’ and politicians’ “pro-tenant” culture, although it is really more of a pro-incumbent-tenant (the ones who benefit most from rent control etc. and have been around to know their way around local politics) culture, since the result is often unfriendly to shorter term tenants like college students, whom the long term residents often have NIMBY attitudes against (a house with many college students is seen as a potential “animal house”, even in the absence of Greek letters).
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Maybe the answer is they don’t need to expand their student population.
I remember reading somewhere on CC they have classes with 1000+ students. That’s unbelievable.
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UC should take over adjacent under-enrolled Community Colleges and convert them to satellite campuses. Also, turning San Jose State University into a UC is another good idea, IMO.
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Kid just got email about it from UCB (applicant not yet admitted)
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It takes years (decades, really) to obtain City approval to add student housing. One of the most recent agreements requires the Campus to house homeless in the ground floor of a new student dorm.
The Deep Blue Bay Area has a strong no-growth, NIMBY attitude.
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Note that the 5,100 admissions are estimated to yield about 3,050 matriculants, or about 60% yield. Since UCB’s yield is 40% for frosh and 59% for the smaller transfer group (44% overall), that indicates that they estimate that the 5,100 potential admits at the bottom of the admit pile would have a higher yield than other admits (which is not surprising).
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That’s crazy and only adds strength to the plaintiffs’ position.
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That is CS 61A, the first course in the sequence for potential CS majors (in addition to already-declared EECS majors). As you can imagine, the CS major has grown immensely in popularity over the last decade or two.
Still, Harvard and Stanford with their 700+ student introductory CS courses have even higher percentages of their smaller student bodies enrolled in those courses.
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Yep. I can see that faction having a huge role behind the scenes. I have a colleague who does UDs/real property law, and not only won’t take any eviction cases in Alameda, but uniformly advises clients not to be landlords in the county.
But I digress, I can see that pro-tenant faction’s position (which I assume is “keep students out because prices will go up”) may rule the day in the Alameda courthouse, it may not play so well in Sacramento.
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The incumbent tenants are financially protected by rent control etc., but their complaint about students is probably more along the lines of NIMBY against potential “animal houses”. (The page linked in post #6 pretty much says that.)
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I look forward to seeing how this plays out. The fact that UC Berkeley can only house 22% of its undergrads and 9% of its grad students is pitiful. And this isn’t a small liberal arts college where that only leaves about 800 students to find a place to live. There are around 31,000 undergrads (22% = spots for around 6,820 of them) and about 12,000 grad students (9% - spots for 1,080). So the university has spots for around 7900 students but has an enrollment well north of 40,000, leaving the city to find spots for an extra 30,000+ residents, or affordable housing for the residents who are priced out by the families who are paying for off-campus housing for their students. And their new building project costing who knows how many millions is only going to add housing for 225 students?
The town of Berkeley may have a reputation for being very liberal, but I’m with the residents on this one. It’s sad that it’s going to hurt this incoming class, but the university has been an irresponsible neighbor. But most can guess why UC Berkeley has been doing this…the $57million/year addition to its budget for OOS/international students is my guess.
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The contrast with UCLA, which has just added 1800 beds is striking. And yet UCLA is adjacent to one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country (Bel Air):
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It took the campus 5 decades to obtain approvals to build student housing on land it already owned. And they had to include 125 beds for the the City’s homeless to get it done.
"The UC Board of Regents has finally accomplished what it set out to do more than 50 years ago: tame People’s Park by building student housing there.
The Regents on Thursday overwhelming voted in favor of building 1,100 beds for students in two buildings, one 12 stories high and one six stories, along with 125 beds of supportive housing for the unhoused…"
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