Enrollment
jump upsets Berkeley
UC campus already too dense without 851 more, mayor says
Charles Burress, Tanya Schevitz, Chronicle Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle
www.sfgate.com
Figures released yesterday by the University of California at Berkeley show a jump in student population that is angering city officials and threatening to violate an enrollment-cap agreement. The fall enrollment data also showed more minority freshmen over last year, except for African Americans. "It (the campus) is already too dense," said a frustrated Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean. "They were supposed to reduce the enrollment." Campus enrollment, which jumped by 851 students to 32,128 this fall, has long been a sore point in the cramped city of 103,000.
"There's already a housing crisis in Berkeley," said Andy Katz, the student government's housing director. A larger student body also means more staff and buildings, placing a drain on city services and tax revenues, Dean said. A 1989 city-campus agreement called for reduced enrollment, with the year- round figure (the average of fall and spring semesters) never to exceed a 31, 200 cap before 2005. Campus officials said they cannot predict this year's year-round figure because spring hasn't come.
The spring figure usually drops. But the drop, if it remains in the range of the past three years, would not be enough to pull the fall figures released yesterday below the cap. Campus spokeswoman Marie Felde said the cap is based on a "complex" calculation that distinguishes between total students and full-time equivalents. "We do not believe we are over the cap," she said. The campus director of community relations, Irene Hegarty, said a second agreement in 1990 allows the cap to be exceeded if there is a "a significant change in circumstances" and if the campus amends its long-range development plan and prepares an environmental impact report.
The campus must grow because of a surge in state population, she said. UC Berkeley "is the biggest corporation in Berkeley," said council member Kriss Worthington, "and they keep doing what they want, whether it's appropriate or whether it's legal." The city attorney, at the request of the city council, has engaged outside counsel to study the agreements and determine what remedies the city may have. Among minority students, Latino freshmen increased 21.3 percent to 388 in a class of 3,842, but African-Americans fell 3.4 percent to 143.
Asian American freshmen grew 3.6 percent to 1,688, while whites increased 1.1 percent to 1, 134. UC Berkeley has made slow gains in enrollment of underrepresented minorities after a steep drop in 1998 when a ban on affirmative action went into effect. E-mail the writers at cburress@sfchronicle.com and tschevitz@sfchronicle.com.
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 21
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