Applications across the entire California State University (CSU) system—and particularly at Long Beach State, which fielded more than any of the 22 CSU campuses—have risen dramatically despite 2011 being the first year ever in the nation in which college enrollment dropped.
CSULB also led the CSU system in the number of domestic credential and graduate student applications—2,798—a 72 percent percent increase over last year.
For universities, rises in application numbers hold a sense of pride. Take, for example, the following quote from a CSULB press release in which the university claims that their record number of apps—82,026—added “credibility to its reputation as a university of choice for students across California and beyond…”
However, for students, attached to such staggering numbers are anxiety, stress and a feeling of being lost amidst large pools of students—for no statement has been given that the amount of freshman and transfer student spots available will increase correspondingly.
And with 763,517 applying to the campuses of the CSU—a 10 percent increase in a single year—students have an uphill battle to face.
What doesn’t help matters are the blatant avoidance of the subject at hand: how the CSU has called for potential enrollment reductions despite Prop 30’s passing and yet singly advertising higher enrollment as a testament to the quality of the system, without mention of the thousands of qualified students they will be forced to turn away.
“CSULB’s application numbers represent the very sad dichotomy between its attractiveness as a college destination and its increasingly limited ability to provide access to qualified students,” said Miles Nevin, Executive Director of the California State Student Association. “Because the state has abandoned as a priority the funding of higher education in California, CSULB is not going to be able to serve the vast amount of these students. Seeing record applications is a worthy story to cover. The real, underlying story is that most of these students will be denied admission despite doing every single thing they were expected to do in high school and in their community colleges.”
According to CSULB, about 56,213 will compete for 4,000 freshman spots and 25,813 will vie for 3,000 transfer spots in the Fall 2013 admission process.