Admissions officers at the State University of New York college campus here are suddenly afraid of getting what they have always wished for: legions of top high school seniors saying “yes” to their fat envelopes.
Students are already tripled up in many dorm rooms after an unexpectedly large freshman class entered last autumn. And despite looming budget cuts from the state, which more tuition-paying students could help offset, officials say they are determined not to expand enrollment at their liberal-arts college beyond the current 6,000 undergraduates.
At SUNY New Paltz – a four-year college that is one of the statewide system’s 64 campuses – as at many other well-regarded public institutions this spring, admissions calculations carefully measured over many years are being set aside as an unraveling economy is making less-expensive state colleges more appealing.