Lauren RabainoBy Oct. 30, the California State University system had received more than 138,000 electronic applications for fall 2009, an increase of 17 percent from last year.
But for Cal Poly, the spike is less dramatic, with an approximate nine percent increase according to Cindee Thompson, the university’s associate director of admissions and recruitment. If the trend continues through Nov. 30, it will mark Cal Poly’s 15th consecutive year of record application numbers.
Applicants, both freshmen and transfers, will find much more competition for spaces in the school of their choice this fall compared to years past, as schools cut back admissions.
“The main factor is the budget that we’re given through the state of California.” Thompson said.
“We enrolled approximately 1,000 fewer undergraduates for fall of 2008 than we did for fall of 2007 as a direct result of budget cuts from the state. Certainly the situation is looking worse; we’re anticipating that we may have to enroll even fewer if as a system and as a campus we’re handed more cuts.”
For transfer students, timing can be imperative in this competitive environment. Cal Poly did not accept applications for summer 2008 and winter 2009, forcing students who would have started earlier to apply this fall instead.
“We’ve put out information that says, ‘Hey, we really need you to apply early because of the budget crisis and we simply don’t have as many slots as we did before,'” said Teresa Ruiz, communications specialist with the California State University system. “We’re hoping that the spike means that students understand that they need apply early to be considered for the campus of their choice.”
While the school system deals with hard economic times, prospective students are turning to CSUs for a more economical choice than private institutions, and to help in a depressed job market.
“When the economy goes down the way it is now, and there’s a lull, and there aren’t any really good jobs for people to turn to, that’s a really good time for people to turn to education and increase their skill set,” Ruiz said.
As freshmen decide that college may be a better choice than trying their hand in the job market in an uncertain economy, established college funds don’t go as far as they used to and state schools are one opportunity to trim the cost, if they get in.
The math is simple; annual tuition fees at a CSU average $8,100 compared to $20,000 to $36,000 at private schools.
“We cater more to the working class, adult education but there’s definitely an overlap. A student going here won’t pay less than $20,000 a year,” said Roger Tung, an administrative assistant with private John F. Kennedy University. “We have a rolling deadline system so we don’t have all statistics in yet but our enrollment isn’t decreasing.”
All private higher learning institutions are required to collect statistics for accreditation purposes, but comparisons are difficult because neither the CSU system nor their counterparts will have all the data until the end of the school year.