Applications for Transfer to UC Level Off

The number of students applying to transfer from community colleges to the University of California leveled off this fall after surging last year, according to numbers released by the University of California on Thursday.

This fall’s negligible increase in community college transfer applicants contrasts with a 3.5% overall growth in students seeking fall admission to UC undergraduate programs--an increase driven mostly by the ever-growing number of freshman applicants.

While applications provide only a loose indication of how many transfer students actually might enroll, the new numbers raise questions about the effectiveness of efforts by the UC campuses and community colleges to significantly boost transfers.

A total of 13,710 community college students applied for admission to the University of California in the fall of the 1999-2000 school year, up 12 students from the year before, UC officials said.

Twelve students isn’t much. But UC spokesman Terry Lightfoot said university officials hope that actual enrollment of transfer students may edge up anyway.

Lightfoot based that expectation on the fact that more transfer applicants than usual have completed the 60 units needed to qualify as juniors, and slightly more hedged their bets by applying to multiple UC campuses. Both factors increase their chances of admission.

Despite efforts to increase transfers in recent years, it has proven difficult for state officials to nudge greater numbers of community college students into the UC system.

The community colleges and the UCs agreed in 1996 to increase the number of transfer students by 33% by 2005. The agreement was followed by three successive years of transfer declines. While the last two years appear to mark a slight turnaround, the lost ground has not been made up.

“I wish the numbers were higher,” said Steve Handel, UC associate director for outreach and student affairs.

Transfers have long been viewed as a means of bringing increased ethnic diversity to the UCs. That’s because of the large number of minority students in the state’s 106 community colleges.

Transfers have also been considered a means of ensuring poorer students access to premier public universities, since such students tend to begin their college careers at community colleges.

The task of boosting transfers has been complicated by the fact that so many transfer students apply and are admitted to UC schools, but don’t actually show up to take classes. Last year, there was a 9% increase in the number of community college students who applied to UC schools, but only a 2% increase in transfer enrollments.

“It is frustrating,” Handel said. “The students who apply are academically qualified, but they are choosing not to enroll.”

No one knows why this is. But Handel said the UCs will concentrate additional outreach efforts on persuading community college students who are admitted to a UC to actually go to one.

The overall increase in undergraduate UC applications was anticipated because the children of baby boomers are beginning to reach college age. UC officials expected this second tidal wave of students--the first came in the 1960s--to increase UC enrollment by 40% over the next decade.

Correcting erroneous freshman application figures supplied earlier, UC officials reported that Latino applicants from California grew by 6.3% to 7,814, and African Americans were up 3.6% to 2,174.

The percentage of white students declined slightly, by 0.3%, although whites made up the largest portion of the overall pool with 21,944 applicants. Applications from Asian Americans grew by 2.6% to 14,920.

UC officials have been encouraged by the increases in black and Latino freshman applicants, given the university’s concern that these minority students would feel unwelcome after the ban on affirmative action.

UC admissions officers are now poring over applications. They hope to notify all applicants if they are accepted or rejected by April 1.