As part of its 2022 Multi-Year Compact Annual Report, the UC system, alongside Governor Newsom, announced changes to the university’s budget and policies, including a goal of adding spots for in-state students by the 2026-27 academic year.

In the Academic and Student Affairs and Finance and Capital Strategies meeting Wednesday, the UC Board of Regents discussed the strategy behind this proposal, among other plans included in the report.

Aligning with the report’s goal, in 2022, the university began to decrease nonresident enrollment and increase California resident enrollment at the Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego campuses.

The report states that the UC system will enroll 1% more resident undergraduate students per year between 2023-24 and 2026-27 and shift a portion of nonresident enrollment to resident enrollment. 

When the changes have all taken place, the goal is to have no more than 18% of the university’s undergraduates be out-of-state students. As of 2022-23, UC Berkeley currently has 23.6% of students enrolled as nonresidents.

According to the report, the UC system has a target of shifting 902 nonresident seats to resident seats for the 2023 cycle, which the university is expected to meet. UC Berkeley is expected to reduce and shift 1,627 nonresident slots to resident slots by 2027.

UC Budget Analysis and Planning Associate Vice President David Alcocer noted in the regents meeting that while there are “real revenue implications” of cutting nonresident enrollment due to loss of nonresident tuition, state funding should compensate for that loss.

“So from a financial perspective, it is revenue neutral to the campus,” Alcocer said during the meeting. “They are losing (those) nonresidents and that nonresident tuition that they were paying, but (the state) has provided an additional allocation to replace that.”

According to the Budget Act of 2022, which preambled the annual report last year, the state would give the university $31 million in order to offset tuition loss from nonresident students.

Changes in resident and nonresident enrollment has sparked discussion between prospective UC applicants.

Allison Dana, a senior at Albany High School, noted that although it is “nice” to be prioritized as a California resident, especially since the schools are taxpayer-funded, she worries about losing the overall diversity of UC students.

Student at Amador Valley High School Tony Wang agreed that the issue was more “complex,” and said that while he recognizes the UC campuses are in California, there will be an impact on nonresident students.

“I also understand that this policy would significantly cut the amount of out-of-state and international students and raise their tuition as well, which I do not think is very fair for them, since I believe they should not be denied opportunities to earn world class educations from the UCs,” Wang said in a text.