UC San Diego offered admission to a record 42,813 freshmen and transfer students for the upcoming fall quarter, only a portion of whom will accept. But enrollment will rise, straining a campus that’s entering its second decade of rapid expansion.

“We’re expecting to add a few hundred students,” said Jeff Gattas, an assistant chancellor at UCSD. “We’ll be able to accommodate all of the freshmen and transfers we get. The big increase we had last year was an anomaly.”

The university had to scramble to find adequate housing last fall when enrollment soared by about 2,200, roughly 1,000 more than anticipated. Campus officials over-estimated the number of students who would decline admission, a phenomenon known as “summer melt.”

As a result, UCSD’s overall enrollment hit a record 38,798 — a figure that’s nearly 11,000 higher than it was a decade earlier. The majority of the growth involved out-of-state students and those from foreign countries, led by China.


UCSD has been growing rapidly because larger numbers of California high school students are meeting the UC’s admission standards, and there’s less room for expansion at places like UCLA and UC Berkeley.

San Diego also has been courting out-of-state students and foreigners because they pay roughly three times as much in tuition as California residents. The money has helped offset the deep cuts that state government has been making in UC funding, and it has underwritten some growth.

The changes are expected to lead to a historic moment this year at UCSD. The campus estimates that — for the first time — it will generate more revenue from non-resident undergraduates than California undergraduates. The change largely reflects UCSD’s decision to open the floodgate to China. There are now more than 5,000 Chinese students at UCSD, roughly the same number of students the school draws from San Diego County.

UC campuses regularly tweak admissions numbers, hoping to hit a sweet spot that will satisfy California residents, cover operating costs, promote diversity and lure elite students from outside California.


For example, UC Davis this year increased admission offers to California residents by 1,176 while slashing offers to international students by 1,447.

UCSD also is trying to change the mix.

The school offered admission to 8,876 California residents seeking to enroll as transfer students. The figure is 860 higher than it was two years ago and represents a vote of confidence in the California Community College system, which prepares most of the transfer students.

UCSD also made 1,847 admission offers to international transfers, a figure nearly 300 higher than it was in 2017.


But when it came to freshmen, things were different.

UCSD made offers to 18,232 California residents, which represents a decline of nearly 300 since 2017. The campus decided to dote on out-of-state students, who received 2,013 offers.

No one is sure what the precise mix of students will be when UCSD begins the fall quarter on Sept. 23. But crowding and confusion are a certainty.

“Students do not want the campus to grow any bigger,” Ella Chen, editor of The Triton newspaper, told the Union-Tribune last fall. “A lot of resources are already stretched thin and our lecture halls are massive and can’t always accommodate everyone if the entire class actually shows up. Housing and parking are major issues and the growing pains are very apparent.”


The university is mid-way through building a $627 million living and learning neighborhood that will house 2,000 students and add two major research and classroom buildings, dining and retail. Construction just began on UCSD’s new Innovation and Design Center. And workers will break ground on a large engineering complex in mid-November.

The boom is causing the re-routing of traffic, and making always scarce parking even scarcer.