Cal State Announces Penalty Plan for College Enrollment Decline

Amidst an enrollment decline, California State University leaders have announced a new plan that will take money from campuses missing enrollment targets and give it to schools exceeding their targets, Cal Matters reports.

Cal State has been seeing a decline in enrollment in recent years. In fall 2020, the university system actually posted its highest-ever enrollment. Since then, however, the country’s largest public university system collectively lost 27,000 students in two years.

“The California State University is facing an unprecedented moment in its 62-year history,” Steve Relyea, executive vice chancellor and chief financial officer for the system, says in a Board of Trustee’s meeting.

A NEW FUNDING PLAN

The new plan will require any campus that misses its enrollment target by 10% or more to permanently lose up to 5% of its state enrollment funding. That money will be sent to campuses that are exceeding enrollment targets.

Currently, seven campuses in particular—CSU Channel Islands, Chico State, Cal State East Bay, Cal Poly Humboldt, Cal Maritime, Sonoma State, and San Francisco State—are below state enrollment targets by 10% or more. In the subsequent two years, any campus that misses enrollment targets by 7%, and then 5%, respectively, would lose 5% of its state student enrollment funding each year.

“These actions are really intended to incentivize as much upward movement of campuses to and above their enrollment target,” Nathan Evans, an associate vice chancellor and chief of staff who helps to oversee the system’s academic mission for students and faculty, says.

A DISAPPEARING STUDENT BASE

Cal State’s declining enrollment is largely due to existing students. According to Cal Matters, between fall 2020 and fall 2022, the equivalent of roughly 24,000 currently enrolled undergraduates disappeared from the Cal State system.

That’s partly because students on average are collectively taking fewer classes. In just the past two years, students have taken .4 fewer units per term.

Sources: Cal Matters, CPP MediaVision