UCI Expects Enrollment in Fall to Climb by a Hefty 7%

Despite efforts in recent years to restrict growth to 2% annually, UC Irvine will open fall classes Friday with a 7% enrollment increase, Chancellor Jack Peltason announced Wednesday.

Peltason told a morning press breakfast that the campus, which is beginning its 20th year, will have about 13,600 students this fall. The exact total will not be known until after the student fee deadline in late October, but Peltason said there is no doubt that the increase will be about 7%.

“I don’t have an explanation of why it’s 7%,” Peltason said. “Each year we take a number of applications based on the anticipated yield from them.” He indicated that apparently this year more of the applicants qualified and named UCI as their first choice.

William Parker, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, said that in previous years about 3% of the high school seniors in Orange County selected UCI as a first choice. “Now that percentage is up to 4.5%,” Parker said. Those students are among the brightest in the county, he said. The University of California system admits only those students in the top 12.5% of the state’s high school graduates.

Peltason said the 20-year growth of UCI has been “exciting.” The campus opened for its first classes on Oct. 4, 1965, with 1,589 students.

But the growth, including the unexpected spurt this fall, is creating space problems, he said. “We are reaching our outer limits,” Peltason said. “We are taking this number (of students) in confidence that more space (for classes) will be forthcoming.”

Peltason said stop-gap measures include two former bank buildings brought to the campus. One is a 3,000-square-foot structure donated by CommerceBank that has been modified to temporarily house three classrooms.

The other is a 6,000-square-foot building formerly owned by Marine National Bank in Santa Ana. UCI bought the building for $225,000 and will use it for seminar rooms and offices.

Peltason said that UCI “is getting to be more and more a residential campus” and less commuter-oriented. This fall, about one-third of the students will live in on-campus housing; one-third will live away from home and rent in the Irvine area, and a third will commute. The campus this year, as it has almost consistently, will draw about 60% of its enrollment from Orange County, the chancellor said.

Figures from the UCI Admissions Office show that the 1985 freshman class is 52% white, 34% Asian, 6% black and 8% Latino.

Parker said the increased ethnic diversity “really reflects the situation in Orange County.”

UCI ENROLLMENT Chart shows UC Irvine’s fall enrollment during selected years since the school opened in 1965.

1965 1,589 1969 5,081 1973 8,363 1978 9,953 1982 11,280* 1983 11,860* 1984 12,684 1985 13,600**

* calculated **estimated