UC's class of 2026 smaller, but more diverse and with more Californians

The University of California is breaking admissions records again with a bigger freshmen class of diverse Californians for the 2022 fall term.

UC announced Wednesday that it admitted 85,268 first-year students from California for the fall term, a 1.2% increase from last year, which also broke records. However, with campuses working to reduce the proportion of non-resident enrollment, total freshman admissions fell to 125,597, a decrease of 5.1%.

The 2022-23 freshmen class will definitely be more diverse – 37,377 students, which is 43.8% of the freshmen class, are from underrepresented groups, an increase of 2.5% from last year. UC officials say Latino and Latino students are the biggest ethnic group of this year's California freshmen at 37.3%, followed by Black students, whose number increased to 4,855 this year, a 5.7% increase. Offers to Native American students went up by 36%, an increase of 136 students.

UC says it made admission offers to 29,830 Asian American students, increasing their representation to 35% of admitted students. The number of white students admitted this year went down to 15,874, down from 17,024 last year.

There will be a marked drop in the number of non-Californians on UC campuses this year – offers to non-residents and international students were down 19% and 12.2%, respectively. And declining enrollment at California Community Colleges has led to a decrease in transfer applications – this year, UC admitted 25,253 community college transfer students, a decrease of 3,200 from last year. However, the proportion of community college students admitted this year is up to 75.7%, up from 73% last year.