Fewer resident Californians gained acceptance to the University of California system as applications reach a new high, while a record number of students from other countries and states received offers of admission, according to a new report from the Los Angeles Times.
About 60 percent of the 103,117 California applicants were offered a spot on at least one of UC’s nine undergraduate campuses, according to university figures released Thursday. That appears to be a record low acceptance rate, down from about 63 percent of the 99,955 applicants last year, and about 79 percent in 1999, the oldest available system-wide figures.
Among ethnic groups in California, Asian Americans earned the largest share of UC freshman admission offers, 36.3 percent, up from 36 percent last year, and their percentages were above 40 percent at several universities, including the ultra-competitive campuses of UCLA, Irvine and Berkeley.
Latinos were next, constituting 29.6 percent of those admitted, up from 28.9 percent last year when, for the first time, they surpassed the share of accepted applicants who are white.
White students comprised 25.4 percent of the acceptances, down from 26.7 percent, while African Americans remained at 4.3 percent.
While the UC system is facing pressure from Gov. Jerry Brown and the State Legislature to significantly increase the enrollment of both California freshman and transfer students for fall 2016, UC Irvine spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon said that there is room on campus for more students but state funding won’t accommodate more Californians, as nonresidents with higher tuitions cover costs more effectively.
“Even if we took no more out-of-state and international students, we would not be able to take more Californians,” she said.