As of Monday morning, Sacramento State has received 2,794 applications for the spring semester and expects less than a thousand more by the end of September.

In late July, the California State University system opened spring admissions so that the campuses will have eligible students ready to enroll if the proposed budget is passed, Chancellor Charles Reed said in a press release.

The application deadline was initially set for Aug. 31, but the CSU extended it until Sept. 27.

Ed Mills, associate vice president for enrollment management at Sac State, said the university does not know how many applicants it will be able to accept until a final state budget is passed. The university is hoping for a final budget by the end of September.

“We can’t really judge at this moment,” Mills said. “But we’re optimistic.”

If the budget is approved, the CSU will alert the qualified applicants of the status of their applications shortly after Sept. 27. Otherwise, students can either withdraw their application or request for it to be moved to fall 2011.

The proposed budget would restore $305 million in one-time cuts made to the CSU in previous years and provide $60.6 million in enrollment funds.

The number of students admitted to Sac State decreased last spring when the CSU closed transfer student admissions to adjust to the $625 million cut in state funding.

In spring 2010, Sac State enrolled 424 students out of more than 700 applicants, a significant decrease from previous spring semesters. In spring 2008 and 2009, more than 7,000 students applied and 3,600 students were enrolled at Sac State.

If the budget is approved, the CSU will implement a system-wide impaction for spring applicants, which means applicants will be ranked based on GPA and test scores.

This is slightly different from the campus impaction, which will be implemented at Sac State next fall, Mills said. Under campus impaction, Sac State will give priority to students attending high school or community college in the region: Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Yolo, San Joaquin and Solano Counties.

Lois Boulgarides, interim president of the Capitol chapter of the California Faculty Association, said the faculty union supports the CSU’s decision to open spring admissions.

“I think everything that we can do to keep access for the students is good,” she said.

Boulgarides, however, said the real problem is California’s budget process, which requires a two-thirds majority for the Legislature to pass a budget.

“The voters in the minority of the decision end up holding the budget hostage,” she said.

Without this requirement, a budget would have been passed earlier, and the CSU would have been more certain of spring admissions.

Boulgarides cited Proposition 25, which will be on the ballot in November, as a solution.

If passed, the proposition will remove the two-thirds majority requirement, and a budget can be passed with a simple majority vote, she said.

Bernice Elizarraraz, junior biology major, said if she is among the students who are applying for the spring, she would withdraw her application and attend a community college if the proposed budget is not approved.

“It would be a waste of time for me, and a waste of money. I don’t have time for that, and my education is important,” Elizarraraz said.

Cayla Gales can be reached at [email protected].