The University of California enrolled a record number of Californians in Fall 2024, while UC Berkeley joined UCLA in bucking national trends at elite institutions that saw declines in new Black and Latino students in the first class since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down affirmative action .
The data, made public Tuesday, came as the nine undergraduate campus system has faced intense ongoing public pressure to take in more Californians and amid speculation over how its racial makeup would fare in a state where public universities and colleges have long been banned from considering race and gender in admissions.
In total, 198,718 Californians were enrolled for the academic year that began in the fall at the system’s undergraduate campuses that stretch from Davis to San Diego. California residents made up 84.2% of 236,070 undergraduates, compared to 83.5% the year before.
Among those were 60,644 first-year and transfer students from the state. The number of California residents in that category increased at six campuses. UC San Diego had the biggest jump, increasing from 8,436 to 8,907.