Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- The University of California system may cut the number of in-state first-year students by 2,300, or 6 percent, as the recession squeezes the budget.

The proposal to reduce enrollment for the 2009-2010 school year, as well as a plan to freeze 285 salaries of administrators, will be presented Jan. 14 to the Board of Regents by President Mark Yudof, the Office of the President said today in an e-mailed statement. The system, based in Oakland, has 220,000 students on 10 campuses.

California is facing a $42 billion budget deficit during the next 18 months because of the global recession. The 2009-2010 state budget includes no increase to reflect enrollment growth, resulting in a $121.8 million shortfall, according to the statement. The separate California State University System, with 450,000 students on 23 campuses, said in November it will reduce enrollment by about 10,000 because of budget cuts.

“When a student enrolls at the University of California, they expect a certain level of excellence and service; for example, they expect to be able to take the courses they need to graduate in four years,” Ricardo Vazquez, a spokesman for the system, said today in a telephone interview. “In the absence of state funding for this kind of enrollment growth, the university cannot continue to take on more students because we would risk the quality of instruction.”

Under Yudof’s proposal, enrollment won’t be reduced at the University of California’s Berkeley, Los Angeles and Merced campuses. Graduate student levels would remain the same, and the number of transfers from community colleges would increase about 500 to about 16,300 students.

Promises of Access

The University of California promises access to the top 12.5 percent of high school graduates in the state. While the system will continue that guarantee, some students will be offered slots at campuses in the system that the applicants didn’t request, rather than the locations they prefer, Vazquez said.

‘Some of the students who do not receive offers to their campus of their choice might choose to attend college outside the system,” Vazquez said.

As a result, more UC-eligible students will choose to attend California State schools, displacing those students to community colleges, said Debbie Cochrane, a program director for the Institute for College Access and Success, a research and advocacy group in Berkeley.

“Everyone gets shifted down a bit when their top choice isn’t available,” Cochrane said in a telephone interview. “You can still get a spot but you might not get the spot you want.”

Because the state’s community colleges can’t turn anyone away, their enrollments will increase, leading to a reduction in quality and services, Cochrane said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Oliver Staley in New York at ostaley@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 9, 2009 17:05 EST