BY CHUCK MCFADDEN
UCOP News Service

The University of California is on target to increase graduate enrollment and is even ahead of schedule in boosting graduate science and engineering education, UC Senior Vice President and Provost C. Judson King reported Jan. 16 during the Board of Regents meeting.

In addition, UC is managing to increase graduate student financial support, both in expenditures per student and in total expenditures, King told the regents in a progress report on graduate student enrollment.

“The university’s early progress in enhancing support for graduate education is heartening,” King said. “It demonstrates that UC is doing its part and more to provide the educated workforce that our knowledge-based economy will require in the years ahead.”

For 2002-03, total general campus graduate enrollments (which exclude health sciences) rose almost 7%, to an estimated 30,620 full-time equivalent students. This is above the plan for general campus graduate enrollment growth.

Data by discipline for last year show that graduate enrollments in engineering and the sciences exceeded plans. However, UC fell short of achieving its graduate enrollment targets in the humanities, social sciences and the arts during the same period.

King’s report was requested by the regents after the university’s Commission on the Growth and Support of Graduate Education reported last year that UC needed to expand its graduate enrollment if the state were to remain economically competitive.

The commission said that by 2010, UC would need an additional $215 million annually — a 50% increase — to provide the support needed to add 11,000 graduate students and to increase the university’s ability to attract the best graduate students.

Graduate students averaged $15,668 in support in 2000-01, compared with $14,962 (in constant dollars) two years earlier, with a wide range between fields and types of funding. Growth in support dollars per student has exceeded target figures in every area, increasing UC’s competitiveness.