By: Xochilt Andrade, Mikayla Schwartz and Kadie Gurley
Long Beach State experienced a 3% decline in enrollment from fall 2021 to fall 2022, wrote Director of Admissions Andrew Wright in an email.
Wright said the university accepted 17% of waitlisted first-year students including high school seniors and 68% of waitlisted transfer students for the fall 2022 semester.
With CSULB failing to meet student enrollment numbers, President Jane Close Conoley said she plans to improve campus quality and student retention.
In an email sent to Beach faculty and staff on Nov. 3, President Conoley discussed how the university would adapt to enrollment shifts as the school failed to reach expected applicant numbers.
“I share these thoughts not to cause alarm. We are, however, entering an era of even faster change in our state support and our students’ demographics and life choices,” Conoley wrote in the email.
Scott Apel, vice president of administration and finance, said the university is not expecting any impacts from the loss of tuition as the school plans to backfill the missing tuition with one-time money.
However, if the trend continues, the school may need to reassess for budget cuts, Apel said.
Apel said that course availability should remain the same with no immediate change.
“That’s really our number one concern for students,” Apel said. “One of the big, big differences that we see between Cal State Long Beach and some of the other CSUs is that we offer a lot of sections.”
Dhushy Sathianathan, the vice provost for academic planning, said many students are reevaluating whether to pursue higher education with the current job market.
“Students who are going to community college are rethinking the value of higher education,” Sathianathan said. “There may be job opportunities now that they have that they didn’t have before because the unemployment rate is low. Therefore, they’re weighing the balance of continuing college or delaying it for a little later.”
The transfer student enrollment rate has decreased from 5,093 fall of 2020 to 4,461 fall of 2021, according to CSULB Campus Enrollment at Census.
Some students also question the value of a degree versus going directly into the workforce because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the frame of value of college, to the workplace, whether you need the degree to work, that requirement of ‘do I need a degree to get a job’ is being questioned,” Sathianathan said. “And many students are thinking maybe I don’t need to get my degree as fast as I thought. I can get a job now and maybe I don’t need to collect as much debt in finishing my degree.”
Approximately 10,001 students were enrolled in the fall of 2020 versus 9,326 fall of 2021, according to the CSULB Institutional Research and Analytics Workbook: Undergraduate Students.
Sathianathan said many students are delaying college, taking leaves and enrolling in fewer courses now than before.
Across the CSU system, enrollment is decreasing from 485,550 to 477,466, according to the CSU State Supported Enrollment. Sathianathan said Northern California schools face more of this impact than Southern California CSUs.
Sathianathan said that Long Beach State could remain stable currently in its enrollment. Though he said there is a concern for the entire CSU system.
“And in our case, we have so far been fortunate. We’ve been relatively stable within a reasonable margin,” Sathianathan said. “But what we’re concerned about is the future, really concerned about the future as a CSU as a system.
“They are concerned about it because the total enrollment has declined in the CSU.”
The school has accounted for an estimated 16,600 admissions amongst transfer students during the 2021-2022 academic school year, as reported by the CSULB Institutional Research & Analytics. However, only about 5,840 students enrolled in the institution. The admission rate averaged 37.3%.
The majority of transfer students come from community colleges, but enrollment has shown a decrease amongst junior colleges as well.
National research suggests community colleges have lost 15% of student enrollments since 2019, consistent with the previously shared declines observed across the system in the 2020-2021 academic year, as stated in the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s memorandum from March. The research raises concerns about whether students will return to their intended degree paths.
Despite the current decline in enrollment, Conoley shared that the administration is implementing new ways to attract more students to attend and stay at CSULB.
“We don’t have many more spots for [students physically coming], but we have, perhaps, unlimited spots for people who are online,” Conoley said.
Publicizing campus achievements is another way the school plans to appeal to potential first-year and transfer students.
“We are emphasizing that we’re cost-effective, have lower fees than most other CSUs,” Conoley said. “Tuition has stayed steady, our faculty are really great and our graduation rates have improved dramatically. We’ve doubled our four-year graduation rate.”