UCSC sees drop in undergraduate applications for first time in five years

UC Santa Cruz is facing its first decline in undergraduate applications in five years, even as national college application numbers are rising.

At the same time, the school has declined repeated requests to release details of graduate student enrollment, figures university officials have described as “dynamic” due in part to a Trump administration crackdown on international student visas. “We will be able to share more about graduate applications, admissions, and enrollment later in the fall quarter,” UCSC spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason told Lookout on Tuesday via email. 

UC Santa Cruz received 77,773 undergraduate applications this year, according to preliminary numbers published by the University of California Office of the President. The 7.3% drop compared to last year’s 83,915 represents the first time the number of undergraduate applications has fallen since 2020. 

The drop comes in a year when overall applications nationally for higher education increased by 5% from last year, according to Common Application, an application submission platform allowing students to apply to multiple schools.  

Of the undergraduate applications UCSC received, the university offered letters of admission to 57,096 of those students by the end of June – a 23% increase from the 46,582 it admitted in the same period last year. UCSC admitted 73% of its first-year and transfer applicants this year. 

By the time the fall quarter begins, however, the university expects that just 10% of those who have been offered undergraduate admission will enroll in the school, or 5,800 to 6,000. Students decline offers for a number of reasons, including accepting offers at other universities or deciding not to go to school at all. UCSC officials said their actual enrollment numbers won’t be finalized until their third-week census in October. 

Of those estimated 6,000 students, first-years typically make up about 4,300 and transfer students total 1,300. 

The university is planning to keep undergraduate enrollment relatively flat for this upcoming school year compared to the past two years, at about 17,600 to 17,790 students, Michelle Whittingham, former associate vice chancellor for enrollment management, told Lookout this spring. She retired in June.  

Graduate students, in master’s, doctoral and professional programs, make up a much smaller portion of the university’s total enrollment. Last year, the university had 1,796 graduate students – on par with its average for the past several years. But UCSC announced earlier this year that, along with other UC schools, it had to cut graduate admissions. The campus is facing a budget deficit along with the federal government’s slashing of grant money to fund research — often conducted by graduate students. UCSC Chancellor Cindy Larive previously said that the university lost about $15 million in federal research funding. 

The Trump administration has also targeted higher education’s international student enrollment by increasing vetting measures for visa applications and implementing a travel ban for 19 countries. Hernandez-Jason said UCSC’s international students are experiencing visa delays but declined to provide further details on how many students are affected and what the causes for the delays were. 

“We have seen delays with visas for our international students,” he wrote via email, adding that staff in the division of Global Engagement — which oversees international student services — is working with students through the process. 

He also declined repeated requests to provide any data on graduate admissions or enrollment. 

In the spring, Hernandez-Jason provided the number of graduate applications compared to the prior year. Doctoral program applications increased by 17%, from 3,003 to 3,526, and applications for master’s programs increased by nearly 8%, from 4,940 to 5,319. 

Hernandez-Jason wouldn’t provide the number of offers that went to those applicants or how many graduate programs were not taking any new students this year. 

“It’s a dynamic situation,” he said in the spring. 

This month, he repeatedly declined via email to provide the number of graduate admission offers, how many programs weren’t taking new students and how many graduate students were enrolling. 

Jacob Fontana, a statistics doctoral student and UAW 4811 representative, said the incoming classes “have shrunk quite a bit” but said the union was still in the process of gathering data. UAW 4811 is the union representing UC graduate student workers. 

He added that graduate students are still trying to understand the implications of the school’s decision to scrap funding guarantees to new graduate students this year. UCSC notified students of the change in offer letters sent earlier this year, saying the funding was subject to change – and not guaranteed –  “based on action by the federal and or state government, including as to funding.” 

The admissions process is an art and a balancing act, as the university can’t overenroll students but also needs to make sure it meets enrollment targets set by an agreement with the state. What further complicates UCSC’s enrollment process is its housing availability. For years, the university has fought legal challenges to its efforts to build more housing on campus. 

UCSC is in the process of building new housing as well as renovating existing residential buildings. With those projects underway, the university expects to provide housing to 9,078 undergraduates and 94 graduate students, according to Hernandez-Jason. In addition to those units, the university is nearly done constructing its new Family Student Housing complex, which will offer 120 units to students with families. 

The university was scheduled to begin construction on a housing project for nearly 3,000 beds of mostly undergraduate students next year but said earlier this month it’s delayed at least one year. Called the Heller Drive project, it’s the second part of the university’s Student Housing West development. The new Family Student Housing, located at the base of campus on Hagar Drive, is the first phase. 

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