From EdSource: ...While several other UC campuses turn away tens of thousands of qualified students annually, Merced faces the opposite challenge and has struggled to find students willing to enroll. The campus wants to grow enrollment, but despite doubling its physical size this decade with more housing, classroom space, laboratories and other facilities, its enrollment has hovered around 9,000 students for each of the past seven years. Its yield rate — the percentage of admitted students who choose to enroll — is the lowest in the UC system at 4%.
Merced, which opened its doors in 2005, once hoped to reach 15,000 students by 2030, but officials now speak of a more modest goal: reaching 10,000 within the next few years. Achieving that will be important not only for Merced but also for the UC system, which is relying on the campus to enroll more in-state residents and satisfy pressure from lawmakers to get more Californians into UC. Campus officials believe they will see growth beginning this fall. Based on the number of freshmen and transfer students who have indicated intent to enroll, Merced is tracking above where it was at this point in 2025. The campus is continuing to build and expand programs, including a new partnership with UC San Francisco that allows students to work toward a bachelor’s degree at Merced and then an MD at UCSF’s Fresno campus.
UC Merced last year also achieved R1 status, the top research designation awarded by the Carnegie Foundation — and one that officials hope will improve the campus’s reputation with prospective students...
Full story at https://edsource.org/2026/how-uc-merced-is-trying-to-attract-students-after-years-of-slow-growth/755196.
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