CSUN Proposing Admission Requirement Changes Beginning Fall 2016

February 16, 2015

For nearly six decades, California State University, Northridge has been a beacon of opportunity for our region. We have educated generations of Californians and launched thousands of successful futures. The university was founded on the principal of access to a high-quality education, and we have stayed true to that foundation.
 
In recent years, demand for a CSUN education has risen at an incredible rate, while state funding for that education has shrunk. This has created a landscape where more students want to pursue their undergraduate degrees at CSUN than our state and the CSU allows. We have done everything we can to continue to offer a CSUN education to any qualified student, but the CSU system requires - due to the lower level of funding from the state of California - CSUN to not exceed specific enrollment figures.
 
We are at the point where we must change how we manage our enrollment in order to align with the mandate from the CSU system. For this reason, CSUN proposes to implement academic, freshman and transfer-level impaction for undergraduate programs beginning in fall 2016.
 
In the coming weeks, we will look to gain community feedback on our plans. We have scheduled four community meetings throughout our service area to engage our constituents.
 
Some campuses use impaction to change the profile of their student bodies. That is not the goal of CSUN accessing the tools offered by impaction. We will only use impaction to the extent necessary to gradually reach the enrollment target - reducing CSUN's undergraduate enrollment by 1 percent, approximately 300 students, each year for the next four years. We will track very carefully the results of these actions.
 
CSUN remains committed to serving our region and serving our community with the highest-quality educational opportunities. We are seeking to use impaction as an enrollment management tool carefully and judiciously.
 
More information about CSUN's impaction plans and specifics on the upcoming public hearings can be found online at www.csun.edu/impaction.


Dianne F. Harrison, Ph.D.
President
California State University, Northridge