Photo illustration/Paige Xu
Granite Bay, CA. – Chelsea Jackson, a Granite Bay High School senior, is finding herself in a position that many students are facing right now.
Jackson, who had her heart set on attending the University of Oregon, is now having second thoughts.
“Out-of-state tuition is really expensive right now and my parents can’t really afford it,” said Jackson, who is still applying to Oregon, on one condition from her parents – if she goes to Oregon, her parents have insisted she must find some form of scholarship support.
With the economy struggling as it has for the past year, seniors are facing a similar reality, and going to their first-choice school is looking more and more difficult.
For Jackson, her alternatives are in-state schools.
However, California state schools are feeling the pinch more than ever, and chances of getting into a first-choice school have decreased.
“Since the state schools are so impacted right now, I don’t really know where I’m going to go now,” Jackson said.
As early as November, California State University officials announced they would be cutting freshman admissions by 10,000 students. On Jan. 14, the University of California regents voted in favor of a proposal by UC president Mark Yudolf to do the same. The proposal called to decrease admissions by 2,300 students system wide.
“The UC system right now is currently over-enrolled by about 11,000 students for whom we have no state funding,” said Ricardo Vasquez, UC manager of ethnic communication services. “We have experienced very large high school classes and the state was unable to provide for enrollment growth.”
Without state funding, UC will not receive an estimated $121.8 million, according to the UC regents in a Jan. 14 press release. This decision, though final, was met with much hesitation.
“Both the regents and the president have said over and over again that they are reluctant to put a strain on freshman enrollment,” Vasquez said. “At the same time, they want to protect the quality of instructional program that the university offers. In order to do that, if there’s not state funding, what the president is proposing is curtailing enrollment.”
Reduced enrollment was not the only proposal on the table. Tuition and fees were expected to see changes.
According to a Jan. 5 press release, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget proposal for 2009-10 assumes the UC system will raise fees and tuition to increase revenue and merge the gap of the expected $41.6 billion state budget deficit for the 2009-10 fiscal year.
However, the regents have reassured the public that the student’s financial welfare will be taken into the greatest consideration by paying special attention to financial aid and limiting freshman enrollment.
“We will seek to preserve affordability to the greatest extent possible given the multiple financial pressures on the state and the university,” UC regents said in a Jan. 5 press release.
Affordability has since become an increasingly definitive factor in college choices, and according to GBHS advanced placement government and economics teacher Jarrod Westberg, affordability for higher education is becoming harder and harder to come by.
“I think (the Granite Bay) area is getting pummeled,” Westberg said. “I feel so bad for the parents in this area because (seniors) are about to hit college and (seniors’) college plans (their) parents have been saving up for the last 10 to 15 years may have dropped half its value over the last year.”
In these economic times, financial aid is going to become even more crucial to students, Westberg said.
However, the future of financial aid is still questionable. And according to Roseville Joint High School District college counselor Walt Wild, there will likely be an increase in financial aid applicants. Whether these students will receive aid is still in the works.
Because of the uncertainty of Gov. Schwarzenneger’s budget plan, no one can really predict how financial aid will play out.
However, aid will be available, Vasquez said. “We do have a very strong financial aid program,” Vasquez said. “About 53 percent of our students receive grants and scholarships that average about $10,300.”
Should there be a fee increase at UC, 33 percent of the revenue generated will be used solely for financial aid. That, according to Vasquez, is how financial aid has historically played out and will not change.
Even with the tuition increase, though, an influx of applicants could deter how much financial aid is distributed per student.
“(We are seeing) an increase in financial aid applicants,” said Ed Mills, the associate vice president for enrollment and student affairs at Sacramento State University. “And we’re dispersing more financial aid.”
According to Westberg, that aid could very well be spread thinly among applicants. “They might say more kids qualify, but we’re not going to give them as much,” Westberg said.
Because financial aid is still rather unpredictable, students are looking to alternative ways to save money on higher education.
According to Westberg, he expects an influx of students choosing to stay closer to home – at both state colleges like Sacramento State and community colleges.
Because Sacramento State has historically given priority to students within 100 miles, GBHS students, along with other students in the Sacramento area, will have a higher chance to get into local state colleges. GBHS students have already taken advantage of the possible opportunity.
“All of the CSUs have had primary admissions criteria for their region,” Mills said. “We actually have had a lot students applying from the GB area, and I’ve seen increasing numbers from GBHS.”
Sacramento State, unlike many of the CSUs that will be seeing admission cuts, will not be affected as much by the changes. According to Mills, Sacramento State will not have to turn away eligible students.
Though the school will not likely grow, statistics show that it will stay right on target with past years’ admissions.
However, Westberg said that even though Sacramento State will not have to curtail enrollment, the parameters for eligibility will likely shift.
“Say that the 3.9s and the 4.0s (on grade-point average) aren’t getting into the UCs, and they go to the CSUs,” Westberg said. “Then the students who were getting 3.3s and 3.2s who would have gone to the state colleges go to the junior colleges. So the 2.9s that would usually go to the junior colleges might get pinched out of the system.”
Sierra College, a junior college in Rocklin, Calif., has already seen an increase in enrollment for spring 2009, and according to Sue Michaels, Sierra’s manager of marketing and public relations, similar patterns are expected to continue for the fall semester.
Even with increasing enrollment, Sierra College will most likely not extend its class sizes as to not compromise the quality of education.
“We’re doing everything we can to accommodate as many people as we can and still keep the same quality of education,” Michaels said.
With the number of admittances tightening even on the community college level, Michaels advises that students apply as early as possible.
And though the economy has left a strain on several students’ lives, Wild remains optimistic, believing that options are out there.
“If students are focused and motivated,” he said, “they can get to go wherever they want to go.”
By Paige Xu
Granite Bay High School
UC system makes admission cutbacks
Budget affects freshmen getting into universities
Granite Bay, Cal. – It’s 1992. Jarrod Westberg, current Granite Bay High School government teacher and a sophomore back then at California State University, Long Beach, wanders the campus.
Passing the freshman dorms, he glances at the desolate buildings. Why the barrenness? That year Long Beach State decided to reduce all prospective enrollments because of a lack of funds.
Each year, graduating seniors at Granite Bay High School eye various University of California schools as potential universities where they can pursue their undergraduate degree. However, because of the current state of the economy, admissions to UC schools may be threatened.
The UC system projected on its Web site that system-wide, the enrollment of freshman applicants will be decreased by 2,300 in order to deal with a decreasing budget for the 2009-10 academic year.
Lisa Wang, a senior at GBHS, is increasingly anxious as the time for admission decisions looms near.
“(I’m worried about) the quality of education that the UCs are going to be able to offer,” Wang said.
Wang, however, is not alone. One of the 484 GBHS seniors graduating this year, she faces a collegiate system that is bottle-necking acceptance – making her university plans that much cloudier.
The scare caused by UC cutbacks has prompted serious dialogue between students and parents. Even for those students who are accepted, their freshman life may well differ greatly from those of previous graduating classes.
“My parents and I haven’t really talked about money,” Wang said, “but with the cutbacks, (maybe) the UC system will be no different than private institutions in costs.”
Others who have already been accepted into college are less preoccupied with the situation.
“I have back-ups so it’s not a huge deal,” senior Keevan Harding said, “but…it’s a horrible situation for many who don’t have such options.”
While students have a variety of opinions on the matter, one thing is uncertain – the extent of the changes that UC cutbacks will have.
“People may not realize how badly the 10 percent, 16 percent cuts will have on admissions,” Westberg said. “Services that colleges provide won’t be at the same level.”
Toward the end of 2008, fearing the negative effects of less funding, the UC admissions reported a decrease in enrollment for prospective students for the fall.
The decision was affirmed when UC administrators came out the following months to prepare students to expect the worst.
“This…will have serious impacts on our ability to deliver on our mission for our students and for the people of California,” said UC President Robert C. Dynes in an article published by the UC Web site.
Although state officials have reached an accord on the budget crisis, higher education in California is still facing large budget cuts.
While applications are in the process of being reviewed by UC admissions, the system’s tough standards remain unchanged. The system is hesitant to accept a greater number of students when immediate funding is not guaranteed, said Walt Wild, the Roseville Joint Union High School District college and career counselor.
It’s no surprise, then, that many will glimpse a similar phenomenon that Westberg witnessed only years earlier – schools that have either reduced freshman enrollments or accept none at all.
“(Though the) budget has passed, what does that mean to (the UC system) when there is a lag time between the budget being established and its execution,” Wild said. “After all, (the RJUHSD) is not (even) sure how much of the stimulus will be given (to us).”
By Allen Ding
Granite Bay High School