UC Berkeley enforces unit enrollment limit

BERKELEY, Calif. (KGO) -- Getting the classes needed in college has never been easy. Now, some students at Cal are finding it more difficult to enroll in the subjects that they need in order to graduate on time.

Classes at Cal start on August 17. This year the enrollment process has not been business as usual.

Some students think it's fair, but others worry that they may not be able to graduate on time.

On Tuesday afternoon, Laura Brandt was still trying to finalize her fall class schedule at Cal. She needs 16 units, but only has 15. "I'm unable to add another course because my limit is 16, but I want to add another course, so that I have a full load, so I'm trying to figure do I need to drop a class, so that I can add this class," Brandt said.

If you're confused, so were we until we got information on UC Berkeley's new enrollment system.

At Cal, when school starts, undergraduates must have a maximum of 16 units or four classes, period.

But before finalizing their schedule, under the old enrollment system called Tele-BEARS, students were allowed to sign up for more than their 16 units, knowing they would have to drop one of them. It was called Holding a Course.

The new system called cal Central doesn't allow that. "They went with this system because basically students were enrolling in a bunch of classes that they weren't sure they were going to end up taking or not and so that made their wait list process go slower," Academic Affairs VP Frances McGinley said.

That used to make it harder for some students to get into a high-demand course. "Nobody can hold on to that class, you're either enrolled in it or not, so that's effectively good," student Ahlam Quraam said.

But the associated students of UC Berkeley expressed their concern about the new process. "So they're stuck where they're only technically enrolled in maybe one or two classes, which causes a bunch of problems, making them potentially not considered a full time student.

That could affect their financial aid and not to mention any hopes of graduating on time.