CSU system enrollment declined by over 6% from 2019 to 2023, report says
Christie Smith
February 23, 2024
A new report on the California State University system found enrollment declined by over 6% from 2019 to 2023, which indicates it still has not recovered from the pandemic.
Some of the CSU campuses in the Bay Area are impacted, but are seeing some promising signs.
San Francisco State University has seen enrollment drop about 20% since 2019.
“We are sizably smaller than we used to be and at first we attributed it to the pandemic,” SFSU President Lynn Mahoney said.
Mahoney said the fall of 2020 saw a drop off when the campus went remote. The next years were partially back and then community college transfer enrollments declined.
SFSU officials point to a combination of things leading to the enrollment decline: Demographics across the state, cost of living, and many students now choosing to stay closer to home.
In addition, there are fewer international students.
