Sacramento State President Alexander Gonzalez released a statement on Monday regarding last week’s California State University Board of Trustees meeting in Long Beach, concerning the budget situation as well as the universities’ enrollment statuses.

Gonzalez mentioned the state funding for CSUs has been reduced by approximately $968 million since the 2007-08 fiscal year while tuition revenue has increased by about $593 million.

Considering the mandatory cost increases of $135 million, the CSU system has $510 million less per year to go toward helping students.

“The budget difficulties have inevitably focused more attention on enrollment and the trustees are looking very carefully at enrollment levels,” Gonzalez wrote in an update on his “Desk of the President” website.

Gonzalez also said the number of CSU applications has increased dramatically over the last few years and Sac State’s enrollment number is on target.

“We are very aware that some students are frustrated as they try to build schedules that will help them graduate,” Gonzales wrote. “Please let me assure you that we are working very hard to resolve as many ‘pressure points’ as possible in the schedule.”

Increased tuition and spending cuts have closed some of the gap, but there is still a hole to fill in the university’s funding. All of this is happening during a time where students want to take more classes per semester to compensate for increased tuition.

“We are adjusting classes and adding seats daily as data comes into Academic Affairs,” Provost Joseph Sheley said. “The new seats are based on enrollment numbers and largest pressure points in the schedule.”

Russell Preston can be reached at [email protected].