As Berkeley Enrolls More Out-of-State Students, Racial Diversity May Suffer

The Chronicle of Higher Education
February 4, 2009

Ever since California voters banned affirmative action by state agencies in 1996, the University of California at Berkeley has struggled to enroll more than a small group of black and Latino students. Four years ago, Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau called the university's low numbers "shocking" and said the situation was "a crisis."
But after making limited progress since then, Berkeley officials are now struggling to avoid another drop in the enrollment of underrepresented minority students, this time because of pressures from state budget cuts.
To save money, Berkeley plans to reduce the size of next fall's freshman class. The university intends to enroll about 15 percent fewer Californians, while at the same time nearly doubling its number of out-of-state and international students, who will generate millions of dollars in new revenue from higher, nonresident tuition.
The intended growth in nonresident students at Berkeley, from about 12 percent to 23 percent of the student body, comes as public universities everywhere are turning to out-of-state tuition to replace declining state support. But the enrollment changes have sparked deep concern on the campus that black, Latino, and low-income students will be turned away disproportionately.
According to rough estimates prepared by a university panel on nonresident enrollment, the number of Latino freshmen who enroll next year could decline by 18 percent, the number of black freshmen by 13 percent, and the number of first-generation freshmen by 15 percent. Those estimates, which are based on the composition of the 2009-10 freshman applicant pool, compare with a 5-percent cut in the size of the fall freshman class as a whole.

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