Students Look Beyond State

Another college enrollment article in the Sacramento Bee by Laurel Rosenhall citing that the competition is going to be cutthroat. The number of high school grads is soaring while both the University of California and California State are cutting back the number of freshmen they will admit.

Laurel cites several reasons:

1. weak economy
2. budget cuts causing universities to reduce enrollment
3. poor job market for high school graduates causing more grads to turn to college

Students are encouraged to consider applying out of state and to private colleges. The deadline for both UC and State is November 30th. Not every student will get the college they want, but might be offered an alternative such as UC Merced.

The colleges are going to raise the cost by approximately 32% while reducing enrollments.

Here's the list of tips:

1. UC Colleges - apply to many of the 10
2. State Colleges - apply to the ones closest to home to increase the chances of acceptance
3. Consider out of state colleges
4. Consider private colleges - application deadlines vary between Jan 15th and March 1st

CSU Applications Hit Record

Did you see the article in the Sacramento Bee by Laurel Rosenhall? Believe it, a record number of students are applying and students need to get their applications in by the end of the month. There's been a 53% increase compared to the same time last year. The number of transfer students has doubled.

Cited reasons:

1. the economy
2. less expensive tuition
3. fewer students accepted
4. publicity

CSU is cutting enrollment by 40,000 students over the next 3 years because of cut's in the budget.

"... we cannot educate more students with $564 million less"

All of this points to the fact that the colleges will be more selective, gpa matters, preparation matters. So remember ... November 30 is the deadline.