Expecting between $500 million and $1.1 billion in budget reductions systemwide over the next year, some UC campuses may incrementally enroll more out-of-state residents for the sake of collecting much heftier tuition fees.

At UCSB, where campus reduction targets are estimated to be at least $35 million for next year, the proportion of nonresident students (from either out-of-state or out-of-country) currently equals about five percent of the undergraduate population. If the campus replaces the 575 in-state students who were unfunded by the state this year with out-of-state students, UCSB would come up with an extra $12 million for next year. In fact, UCSB administrators plan to increase nonresident enrollment for next year by a little over one percent.

UCSB Admissions Director Christine Van Gieson said adding nonresident students to the student body helps to fund the ‘undergraduate experience’ and prevent tuition hikes for in-state students. Although official admissions data won’t be released until this month, Van Gieson said most UC campuses can be expected to up their out-of-state enrollees.

“When we do [release admissions data] it will be evident that many campuses are looking to help soften their budget problems by enrolling a larger number of non-resident students,” Van Gieson said.

According to Chancellor Henry T. Yang, the planned increase in nonresident students at UCSB is quite modest. On average, nonresident students at AAU-approved public universities constitute approximately 25 percent of the institution’s incoming freshman class.

“A revenue enhancement strategy our campus is actively pursuing is to incrementally increase the number of out-of-state and international students on our campus, while maintaining our commitment to enroll California students at the level funded by the state,” Yang said in an e-mail.

Every weekend in March Chancellor Yang and his wife Dilling travel with a small team of admissions counselors, faculty, staff and student volunteers to host annual regional receptions in Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago and cities abroad for the sake of recruiting nonresident students.

“By expanding our recruitment efforts outside California this year, I believe we have enhanced the interest of students from the Midwest and East Coast to attend…,” Yang said in an e-mail. “So in addition to our in-state students, we had the opportunity to meet and talk with about 400 admitted out-of-state students and their family members.”

According to ucsb.edu, about one percent of the student body — or 245 undergraduate and 611 graduate students hailing from 69 different countries — are categorized as international students. An international applicant is a student who holds or expects to hold a student, exchange, visitor or diplomatic visa and who wishes to attend school in the United States. Another four percent of nonresident students are composed of U.S. citizens from outside California.