Student Loan Blog : California State University system

Rejected: San Jose State U Says ‘No’ to 4,400 Qualified Students

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:43:00 GMT

For the first time, San Jose State University has turned away qualified students from its freshmen class — 4,400 students who live outside the county, to be exact — saying that budget cutbacks have forced the university to scale back enrollment, reports the San Jose Mercury News (“San Jose State University Rejects 4,400 Prospective Freshmen,” March 25, 2009).

Transfer students who had just completed their first year at a community college or applicants who were seeking their second bachelor’s degree were among those denied admission.

“The situation is unprecedented,” said Veril Phillips, vice president for student affairs at San Jose State. “We’ve never had a situation where there were so many applicants and we were not able to accommodate them.”

School administrators were told on Nov. 20 by California State University system chancellor Charles Reed to cap enrollment since funding hadn’t kept pace with the growing number of applications. The CSU system received approximately 10 percent less funding than it needed to meet current demand, the Mercury News reported.

As a result, San Jose State was forced to accept only 29,750 students for the upcoming 2009-10 school year — a 9 percent dip from the 32,750 students the school enrolled last school year. Qualified students who applied prior to Nov. 20 were accepted, regardless of where they lived. After that date, however, only qualified Santa Clara County residents were admitted.

“Some students didn’t get in that applied. But most of them made other plans, to Cal State University-Monterey Bay or Cabrillo Community College,” said Julie Edwards Levy, manager of career services at Scotts Valley High School.

“They’re working with what they have to work with,” she added. “They’re not happy but they’re figuring it out.”

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State Colleges Cut Staff, Programs as Budgets Slashed

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:32:00 GMT

Michael Crow, the president of Arizona State University who seven years ago promised to make ASU “The New American University” and to grow the school’s enrollment to 100,000 students by 2020, could see his plans go unfulfilled because of state budget cuts, reports The New York Times (“State Colleges Also Face Cuts in Ambitions,” March 17, 2009).

Since last June, ASU has lost $88 million in state funding, which amounts to 18 percent of the university’s base budget.

“The New American University has died; welcome to the Neutered American University,” the Arizona school’s student newspaper editorialized last month after ASU announced it would be eliminating more than 500 jobs, closing 48 programs and requiring remaining employees to take 10 to 15 days of unpaid leave this spring.

While ASU students said they believe school president Michael Crow is doing his best to protect them from further funding cuts, they also said the state’s budget cuts will negatively affect the quality of their education.

ASU Not Alone, Colleges Struggling Nationwide

Public colleges across the country are experiencing layoffs, salary freezes, and even enrollment reductions as they grapple with shrinking state funding in the current recession.

The University of Florida recently eliminated 430 faculty and staff positions, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, recently laid off around 100 employees, and the University of Vermont has eliminated 16 positions, left 22 faculty positions vacant, and frozen the salaries of certain staff, The New York Times reports.

And California’s higher education system, which serves 3.3 million students — nearly 20 percent of college student nationwide — is among the nation’s college systems hardest hit by this recession. Both the University of California system and the California State University system have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding and have been forced to shrink their enrollment numbers.

“What’s happening, everywhere, is what’s happening to Michael Crow,” said Jane Wellman, executive director of the Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs, Productivity and Accountability, an organization that studies college spending. “The trend line is states disinvesting in higher education.”

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Enrollment Up at For-Profit Colleges Despite Economy

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:30:00 GMT

While numerous nonprofit colleges have halted construction and are undergoing hiring freezes and other cutbacks due to the declining economy, for-profit colleges are seeing higher enrollment numbers and higher profit margins (“Economic Downturn Is a Boon for For- Profit Colleges,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Dec. 10, 2008).

Enrollments at nine major publicly traded college companies grew faster than average for the past three years, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports, and profit margins for the current year are projected to be the highest they’ve been since 2005.

Many of the negative trends impacting the economy — state budget cuts, widespread layoffs, and a projected unemployment rate of 10 percent — may mean for-profit institutions will see even greater growth as laid-off workers return to school to gain new job skills.

Influx of Students Presents Opportunities for For-Profits

By contrast, many public and private schools have been negatively affected by state budget cuts and are struggling to accommodate new students. The California State University system, for example, recently announced that it plans to cap enrollment for the fall 2009 semester, and could turn away as many as 10,000 new students because it doesn’t have the financial resources to handle them.

For-profit institutions, on the other hand, are well positioned to benefit from the influx of new students, suggests The Chronicle. Recent changes to federal financial aid policies have made federal grants and subsidized student loans more widely available to students at for-profit schools.

And some for-profit institutions are doing so well financially they have created their own loan programs that enable them to lend directly to their students. Students who need additional funds to cover their college costs, including those with poor credit, can apply for unsubsidized private loans directly at their school, a new practice that many schools, including Corinthian Colleges, have recently initiated.

Although for-profit schools welcome the influx of new students, college administrators are concerned that the economy will not recover quickly enough for their job-seeking graduates.

To ensure that students land the positions they need, career experts like Rene Champagne, chairman of the Career College Association, say its best to begin the search process as early as possible, preferably prior to graduation.

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Teachers in California Oppose $340 Million in Cuts to Education

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:36:00 GMT

Following a tuition-increase protest last month by students in the University of California and California State University systems that resulted in 16 arrests, California educators are voicing grievances of their own.

Tens of thousands of teachers at nearly 900 schools throughout Los Angeles left their classrooms Friday to protest California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed state budget cuts to education, according to an article in The New York Times ("California Teachers Challenge Proposed Cuts," June 7, 2008).

During the scheduled hour-long protest, teachers and parents voiced their opposition to the budget cuts, which, if passed, would reduce funding for Los Angeles schools next year by $340 million, says A.J. Duffy, president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles union representing 48,000 teachers.

Teachers took to the streets, despite an attempt by Los Angeles Unified School District officials last month to win a court injunction that would have prevented the educators from leaving their classrooms to join the picket line.

To account for the teachers’ absence, administrators and substitute teachers from neighboring districts were brought in to sit with students in school auditoriums, gymnasiums, and on playgrounds, writes New York Times reporter Rebecca Cathcart.

The suggested education budget cuts and college tuition hikes are part of Schwarzenegger’s plan to help reduce the state’s projected $17-billion budget deficit.

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