Budget Cuts Will Mean Fewer Places for Freshman Students at the University of California: But the Number of Applicants of All Races Is Up

The University of California has announced that it will seek to reduce the size of the entering class in 2009 by about 6 percent because of cutbacks in state funding. But with fewer places available, the university system reports that the number of applications is up. This will create a more selective admissions process. And remember that by law, all admissions decisions at California state universities must be made without consideration of race.

The University of California reports that it received 4,332 applications from African-American students for places in the Class of 2013 at its nine undergraduate campuses. This is an increase of 5.8 percent from last year.

The number of black applicants increased at six of the nine undergraduate campuses. At the state’s flagship campus at Berkeley there were 2,048 black applicants, up 3.2 percent from 2008. But at the prestigious UCLA campus the number of blacks applying for admission dropped by nearly 3 percent.