Over-enrollment Adds Burden to Tight Budget

As a result of over-enrollment at UNC-system campuses, officials are requesting additional funding from the N.C. General Assembly for the upcoming academic year.

The system enrolled 176,967 students for the 2002-03 academic year, which is 1,367 students over its targeted goal. UNC-Chapel Hill was 134 students above its target enrollment, reports state.

Over-enrollment occurs because there is no way to predict definitively the number of students who will accept admittance to a university, said Jeff Davies, UNC-system vice president for finance.

"(Enrollment targeting) is an art and a science," he said.

Administrators predict a subsequent year's enrollment based on past rates of matriculation.

If more students accept admission than anticipated, over-enrollment occurs much as it has this year, Davies said.

He added that though it is difficult to prevent over-enrollment, it is problematic because additional students are unfunded.

When a school over-enrolls itself, the extra costs are absorbed by the university, said Gretchen Bataille, UNC-system senior vice president for academic affairs.

Each UNC-system institution accommodates additional students in different ways, Davies said.

But most universities deal with over-enrollment by increasing class sizes, Bataille said.

While Battaille said over-enrollment has not been a serious concern in the past, she said that this year it is more problematic because of the state's budget crisis.

"Absorbing extra students is a burden because of the budget cuts," she said.

"Our biggest concern is how the quality of the UNC system is being affected overall."

Bataille stressed that it is important for schools to be accurate when setting their enrollment targets in years to come.

In order for the UNC system to accommodate this year's over-enrollment and next year's batch of students, its funding request for 2003-04 will be larger than in the past.

Bataille said that optimally, the General Assembly will include enrollment in the continuation budget, which would guarantee funding automatically for enrollment targets.

She said, "We anticipate that we will be given the enrollment funding."

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