Public Comment

Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods offers partial relief to UC Berkeley from enrollment pause; 1,000 more deserving California high school students could attend UC Berkeley in person  

Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods takes to heart California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu’s admonition to SBN and the University of California to immediately engage in settlement talks to mitigate harm to California high school seniors. While SBN has documented that UC Berkeley has exceeded the City of Berkeley’s housing capacity and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, in the spirit of moving forward SBN makes this offer to UC President Michael Drake:.  

SBN would agree to provide partial relief to UC Berkeley from the enrollment pause imposed by the Superior Court and agree to a temporary, partial, stay of the enrollment pause to allow enrollment at UC Berkeley during the 2022-23 academic year to increase from the current court ordered level of 42,347 to 43,347, approximately the Fall 2019 pre-pandemic level, provided that at least 90% of new undergraduate students matriculating at UC Berkeley in the 2022-23 academic year are California residents, and providing that UC does not attempt to exceed total enrollment of 43,347 for the 2022-23 academic year by further legal action in the courts or state legislature.  

According to the enrollment numbers provided in UC Berkeley’s public statement on Friday, our offer ensures that virtually all of the deserving California high school students that UC Berkeley would like to admit could attend during the 2022 school year, and no transfer students that UC Berkeley wants to admit would have their enrollment deferred.  

As we’ve stated many times in both our offers to UC and to the public, we are willing to enter into settlement talks based on the principle that enrollment growth can only take place with no further pressure on the City of Berkeley’s housing market. UC Berkeley’s own data show that Berkeley is losing large numbers of low-income households due to displacement by the increased number of students and UC Berkeley’s most recent long range enrollment plan admits that even by the year 2036-37, UC Berkeley will fail to provide housing for 46,574 students, faculty, and staff, with unaccommodated students making up 20,045 of that total. There are many ways to balance enrollment with housing capacity that would be consistent with the mission of UC Berkeley to educate our deserving California high school students and with the community’s goals of protecting the diversity that we all prize.