Berkeley Will Cap Enrollment

We previously reported on the California appellate court decision to cap the University of California, Berkeley enrollment for this coming year at 2020-2021 levels. As our loyal readers may remember, enrollment at the vast majority of elite universities was down significantly that academic year due to the number of students who took gap years as a result of the onset of the pandemic. As it was detailed at the time of the appellate court decision, the freeze would likely force UC Berkeley to turn away one out of every three undergrads who otherwise would have enrolled (or 5,100 offers of admission and 3,050 seats in the Class of 2026). Yet while the enrollment cap at UC Berkeley will stand — since the California Supreme Court has refused to hear the case — the school has since adjusted the number of students it will not be able to enroll as a result of the cap. Instead of the anticipated 3,050, it’s actually only 400 students. It seems someone at UC Berkeley was absent the day arithmetic was taught in kindergarten.

As Josh Moody reports for Inside Higher Ed in a piece entitled “Berkeley Must Cap Enrollment,” “California’s Supreme Court will not take up a case between the University of California, Berkeley, and a local community group, meaning Berkeley will need to shrink its student body. The California Supreme Court announced Thursday that it will not review the case, denying the University of California’s appeal to overturn a lower court ruling that forced an enrollment cap. At the heart of the matter is a legal battle between UC Berkeley and Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods, a community group that successfully sued the university over its expansion plans, invoking the California Environmental Quality Act. In that case, an Alameda County Superior Court judge ordered Berkeley to reduce its head count by 3,050 students.”

We think it’s super crummy that a busybody neighborhood group denied the opportunity for hundreds of young people to attend California’s flagship public university. This neighborhood group sure smells to us like a homeowner’s association with a little bit of power exercising it in all the wrong ways. You want to paint your wall grey? You can’t do it! You want to install a washer-dryer? No way, no how! You want a smoke-free home? Move to Nebraska. You want to enroll 400 more students? Not on our neighborhood watch! Shame on Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods!