California fall undergraduate enrollment declines have slowed, but still ‘troubling’
A California freshman was surprised last spring when he was told that his class would be canceled.
“The only reason I had to think about it was because I was a sophomore and had been enrolled in three four-credit courses the semester before,” said the unnamed student, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of alienating his professors. “If I had stayed on the schedule, I could have completed the course load.”
The move left the freshman with a decision: Leave school, or go to the dean’s office.
The student — who also asked that his name not be used — recalled a meeting with a faculty adviser, his enrollment adviser, and a dean.
“The dean told me to contact my advisor, and to call them in the morning,” the student said. “I said, ‘Yeah, that’s fine.’ The next morning I called them again to say I was leaving. They said I had to stay in school and not transfer to another school.” According to the student, the adviser then told him: “If you have any questions, you can come back for a meeting.”
Another student told NBC News that administrators at the university had told his parents that she was dropping out.
“I was a senior,” she said, adding that administrators sent her a letter that read, in part, “We have decided that you are not worthy of being a member of your class or attending college in this state.”
According to an October 2011 article by KQED on California higher education, “In recent years, the share of undergraduates attending California four-year colleges and universities has declined. Enrollment growth stalled in the early 2000s, and since 2010 the state has lost more than 30,000 undergraduates.
“Between 2000 and 2010, the number of California undergraduates attending universities dropped from 1.1 million to 881,000. Meanwhile, the total number of undergraduates attending California four-year colleges rose from 881,000 to 1.1 million.” The article goes on to state that, “Enrollment growth in the state of California has slowed to a crawl.”
NBC Bay Area requested