In an effort to attract more students over the summer, UCSB Summer Sessions plans to offer an increased number of classes, lower rates and more classes with professors this year.

Registration for Summer Session has already begun for UC students and registration opens to the general public May 1.

UCSB administrators are attempting to increase Summer Session popularity to ease an expected influx of students during the regular academic year, called Tidal Wave II. Over the next decade, the UC system is expecting an increase of 25 percent in the number of eligible applicants, Summer Sessions Director Loy Lytle said.

“What Tidal Wave II is, is the rhythmic changes of the population, and this has to do with the baby boomers. These are the grandchildren of the baby boomers,” he said. “We are funded by the state and, constitutionally, we are mandated to accept the top 8 percent.”

The required 8 percent enrollment would increase the amount of students, Lytle said, but UCSB has a California Coastal Commission mandated three-quarter average of 20,000 students to limit impact on the local community.

Administrators have been discussing ways to stay under the cap, Chancellor Henry Yang said.

“On our campus, we have been exploring ways to accommodate approximately 4,000 more summer students without diminishing the quality of education or exceeding our enrollment cap of 20,000 students,” Yang said. “With these [new] incentives, enrollment in the summer’s term is targeted to increase by 10-20 percent over previous years, or by as many as 1,000 students.”

Summer Sessions now offers approximately 50 percent more courses than last year as an incentive for students to enroll in the summer and as a method to help students graduate faster.

“The number of courses has greatly expanded – an increase in courses to about 620 from the 419 last year – and more faculty will be teaching this year,” Lytle said. “The trick for the campus is to use the summer program to encourage students to decrease the time it takes to get their degree.”

“The faculty have been wonderfully responsive to our call for additional summer class offerings and in bearing the additional teaching load,” Yang said. “As a result, about 25 percent of the classes offered during this year’s summer term will be taught by ladder-rank faculty. If we include non-ladder rank faculty, approximately 50 percent of the courses will be taught by the same faculty who offer courses during one or more of the Fall, Winter and Spring Quarters.”

Unit costs for summer were devised by pro-rating a normal quarter in which a student pays $1143 and takes 15 units. A derived $76 unit fee is applied to only the first eight units of a 16-unit study load, Lytle said.

“In the past, Summer Session was paid for entirely by fees; it was entirely self-supporting. Now the state will fund it as they do with fall, winter and spring. One-third of [the fees] will go to financial aid to set up a pool, and that’s the same as [the one for] fall, winter and spring,” he said.

New financial aid will also be available this summer – a change from years past when no federal or UCSB aid was available except during a normal academic year, Lytle said.

“With the financial aid and the increased work opportunities, we hope to have the same diversity [as during the normal year],” he said.

Junior electrical engineering major James Rosenthal said he found the Summer Session improvements convenient for students.

“I think it’s better, it’s cheaper and more people are eligible for it. I just have one more GE and then I’m done, and I figure if I took that during the school year then it would just be extra work, so I guess [I’m taking Summer Session] for a lighter load.”

More information can be found at www.summer.ucsb.edu or by calling Summer Sessions at 893-2315.

Print