California State University schools have been instructed to move the fall semester application deadlines.

The fall deadline for Sacramento State was pushed ahead to March 1, a full five months earlier than the original Aug. 1 deadline. For most of the system’s 23 campuses, however, the deadline was moved to Feb. 1.

The deadline change ordered by CSU Chancellor Charles Reed was prompted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed state budget, which threatens to cut funding to education.

The budget proposed by Gov. Schwarzenegger would decrease funding given to schooling by 10 percent at CSU campuses. The result would be a $312.9 million budget cut for all CSU schools.

“The CSU system has always pride itself on being the people’s university, and this (budget) contradicts the CSU outreach,” said Paul Browning, a public affairs spokesmanfor the Chancellor’s office. “This budget could be detrimental to our work.”

This financial change has prompted this earlier deadline and may affect the class sizes and availability on the Sac State campus.

“Sac State uses the summer to enroll more students,” Browning said.

Chancellor Reed instructed all CSU schools to have application deadlines met by March 1, regardless if enrollment targets are met or not. In spite of the change, Sac State officials say the school is very close to reaching to their enrollment targets.

“The good news for (Sac State) is that application activity for fall of 2008 has given us 90 percent of incoming freshmen,” Associate Vice President of Student Affairs Ed Mills said.

“We were only under enrolled by one-half percent which can possibly be filled by March 1 by transfer students,” Mills said.

This new deadline only affects incoming freshmen and not the current students at CSU schools looking to register for classes. According to Mills, incoming freshmen don’t have a lot to worry about when it comes to getting classes.

“I just hope that class sizes won’t get larger,” Megan Veyna, a Sac State student, said. “I love how a lot of Sac State’s classes are smaller, it makes learning a lot easier for me.”