Gaming Admissions at Santa Cruz

Inside Higher Ed ran a piece yesterday entitled "UC Santa Cruz’s Admissions Gamble." Excerpt:

Under pressure from lawmakers to admit more in-state students, the University of California, Santa Cruz, accepted 50,381 total applicants this fall, up from just over 38,000 last year. Of those, roughly 23,000 are in-state freshmen and 6,600 are transfers from within California. That means in-state first-year students are up by nearly 40 percent and transfers by 2 percent.

The dramatic increase at Santa Cruz is a calculated risk, a gamble that aims to meet the demands of state lawmakers while betting that most of those students won’t actually enroll at a campus with a one-year housing guarantee in one of the nation’s most expensive real estate markets. Given the high demand for on-campus housing and a lack of affordable options in the city of Santa Cruz, the university is banking on a low yield rate and staggered enrollment so that its capacity of nearly 10,000 beds is not overwhelmed. In the end, despite record acceptance, the university anticipates increasing enrollment by 730 students this year when the fall quarter begins in late September...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/admissions/traditional-age/2023/08/28/will-uc-santa-cruzs-admissions-gamble-pay.