2-Year Transfers to Set UC Record

The University of California announced Wednesday that it has accepted a record number of community college transfer students for the fall, the fourth straight year of such increases.

University-wide, the proportion of Latino, African American and American Indian students within the transfer group stayed virtually unchanged from last year, at 17.8%, according to annual figures released Wednesday. But the percentage was up slightly at UC Berkeley and UCLA, the two most competitive campuses.

Across all eight undergraduate campuses, the university this year admitted 13,627 transfer students from California community colleges, a 3.8% gain from last year, the figures showed. The increase, which comes alongside a 4.9% rise in freshman admissions for the fall, is part of an expected decadelong jump in enrollment as the children of baby boomers reach college age.

UC and community college officials, who have worked together in recent years to encourage more community college students to enter the UC system, said they were satisfied with the gains.

But they also noted that the increase was not as large as last year, when 8.3% more transfer students were admitted than the year before. They attributed the slowdown to the state’s budget crisis, which has forced cutbacks in outreach efforts and stalled plans for a proposed “dual admission” program that would streamline UC entry for community college students.

UC President Richard C. Atkinson said Wednesday’s figures showed that the university was making progress in expanding access for community college students. But he said that he hoped the number of transfers would grow with the eventual funding of the dual admission program, which would guarantee UC admission to qualified students who agree to spend their first two years at community colleges. The program was put on hold last year when the Legislature did not OK its funding.

California Community Colleges Chancellor Thomas J. Nussbaum noted that the year’s figures fell short of a UC goal, set in a “partnership agreement” with Gov. Gray Davis in 2000, to increase enrollment from the state’s community colleges by 6% annually through 2005. But given the circumstances, “we’re encouraged that the numbers are still moving up,” he said.

Transfers long have been viewed as a means of bringing increased ethnic diversity to UC because the state’s 108 community colleges have a large number of underrepresented minority students.

Across the UC system, the proportion of such students in Wednesday’s transfer figures remained almost flat from last year, climbing slightly at several campuses and dipping at others.

But at Berkeley , the proportion of such students admitted in the transfer group was 16.5% this year, compared with 15.3% last year. At UCLA, this year’s figure was 21.2%. Last year’s was 18.8%.