The University of California (UC) system admitted a record-high number of California freshman applicants for the 2023–24 school year after ramping up efforts to boost enrollment among state residents.
UC officials said it admitted 88,285 California freshmen—a 3.5 percent increase from the previous year, in an Aug. 8 statement.
The numbers come as UC announced earlier this year that it would increase its outreach efforts to attract more California applicants.
The funding increase amounts to $216 million for the upcoming school year for the UC system.
In January, UC President Michael Drake said some of the new funding will be used to reduce nonresident undergraduate enrollment and replace those seats with California students at UC’s Berkeley, San Diego, and Los Angeles campuses.
Mr. Drake said the university is committed to supporting Californians.
“We’re pleased to support thousands more Californians who wish to pursue a higher education, benefitting themselves and communities across the state,” he said in the statement.
Of the 230,400 undergraduate students enrolled systemwide in Fall 2022, 83 percent were California residents, according to UC enrollment data.
UC also admitted a record-high number of minority students this year—up by 4 percent from last year—with Latino students being the largest group, according to the statement.
About 37.6 percent admitted this year are Latino—a slight increase from last year, when 37.3 percent of first-year students were Latino.
Additionally, 34.2 percent of admitted students are Asian-American, 5.5 percent are black, and about 1 percent are Native American Indians. The latter demographic has increased by 11.6 percent since 2022, according to the statement.
The overall number of applicants for fall 2023 decreased by 2 percent from last year—to 246,000 applicants from 251,700.
Despite this, UC’s acceptance rate appears to have increased slightly, admitting 3 percent more students than the previous year—to 157,446 this year from 152,907 in 2022.
