SAN FRANCISCO, May 19 (Xinhua) -- The University of California (UC) Board of Regents has approved a policy to limit the proportion of out-of-state and international students at its nine undergraduate campuses.
The policy was approved Thursday in response to California state's Budget Act of 2016, which called for the UC Board of Regents to limit the number of undergraduate nonresidents as a condition for receiving 18.5 million dollars to support the enrollment of an additional 2,500 California resident undergraduates in the upcoming academic year.
Through an agreement with the state, the UC system enrolled more than 7,400 additional California residents in fall 2016, the largest year-to-year jump in California resident enrollment since the end of World War II.
The policy, the first of its kind at UC, which has 10 campuses, calls for capping nonresident enrollment at 18 percent at five UC campuses, namely UC Davis, UC Merced, UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara and UC Santa Cruz.
At the other four campuses -- UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, UCLA and UC San Diego -- where the proportion of nonresidents exceeds 18 percent, nonresident enrollment will be capped at the proportion that each campus enrolls in the 2017-18 academic year.
"Our new nonresident enrollment policy strikes the right balance between UC's continued commitment to putting California students first and the significant benefits that out-of-state and international students provide the university," said UC President Janet Napolitano.
According to a fact sheet from the UC Office of the President, nonresidents "bring with them significant revenues that have become essential to the university's ability to continue to provide a high-quality education to California students."
In addition, officials of the public university system argued that UC nonresident students now make up about 16.5 percent of total undergraduates systemwide, compared with an average of 27.9 percent for the public institutions in the Association of American Universities (AAU).
To be reviewed in at least four years, the new policy "reaffirms our pledge that nonresident students will be enrolled only in addition to, and never in place of, Californians," Napolitano said in a statement.
