UC Berkeley enrollment to drop following CA Supreme Court ruling

Enrollment at the University of California, Berkeley, is expected to plummet following Thursday’s California Supreme Court ruling.

The decision, ruled 5-2, rejected a request by the university to stop a lower court ruling that would freeze enrollment. Without high court intervention, the university is now expected to experience a significant drop in admission for the 2022-2023 academic year.

The conflict began when activist group Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods took legal action against the university and accused the institution of admitting too many students than could be accommodated by on-campus housing.

[RELATED: Judge freezes enrollment at UC-Berkeley citing ‘physical environment’ concerns]

UC-Berkely is currently home to 45,000 students. Under the freeze, the university is expected to shrink its size to 42,347 students by the start of the fall term. This will result in nearly 3,000 spots being stripped from prospective undergraduates and return the university to 2020-2021 enrollment levels.

The impact will be felt by the incoming freshman class as over 5,000 offer letters will not be sent to hopeful, college-bound students. Now, instead of the typical 21,000 slots reserved for new admittance, the university has accounted for only 15,900 offers to be sent.

Acceptance letters for the fall semester are scheduled to be sent out starting Mar. 23.

UC-Berkeley’s mass size has been a debated topic, sparking backlash from activist groups who accuse the university of encroaching on local neighborhoods to expand housing opportunities.

Expansion of the college to accommodate an increase in student population was considered by the justices. The university filed an environmental impact report to provide detail on a new construction project, however, it was concluded that the administration did not sufficiently take into account the impact that would be felt by the surrounding city. 

The report is the result of the Calfornia Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) that requires state and local agencies to examine the environmental impact of construction projects. The report must be submitted and approved before projects can begin.

However, the act is currently under scrutiny within the state legislature as the bill CA SB 886 motions to provide exemptions for “public universities: housing projects.”

The text reads, “This bill would... exempt from CEQU a student housing project, as defined, or a faculty and staff housing project, as defined, carried out by a public university, as defined, on real property owned by the public university if the project meets certain requirements and the project is not located, in whole or in part, on certain sites.”

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The bill clarifies that exemptions do not apply to projects that would “require the demolition of specified housing or a historic structure that is listed on a national, state, or local historic register.”

The bill was introduced by State Senator Scott Wiener on Jan. 27 and was most recently re-referred to committee. 

“What we’ve seen is that CEQUA is often used as a tool to slow down or stop the construction of student housing, and also faculty housing, which is covered by the bill,” Wiener told Campus Reform. “We want to just make it easier and faster for UC CSU and community colleges to build student [and] faculty housing.”

“The idea that environmental law will dictate how many students [are] allowed to educate, it’s just ridiculous,” Wiener explained.

Further, he continued:

“UC enrollment should be determined by the Board of Regents, the legislature, and the governor. Not by any random person who has enough money to hire a lawyer to file environmental lawsuits.”

Campus Reform was referred to the university statement regarding the decision.

”We are extremely disheartened by today’s ruling by the Supreme Court of California, which leaves intact a lower court order that will reduce and then freeze enrollment at 2020-2021 levels and prevent thousands of students who would have been offered in-person admission to the University of California, Berkeley, this fall from receiving that offer,” the statement opened. 

The statement continued, noting “this is devastating news for the thousands of students who have worked so hard for and have earned a seat in our fall 2022 classes. Our fight on behalf of every one of these students continues.”

Campus Reform contacted Wiener for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.

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