Cal State Bakersfield administrators may end a freeze on accepting spring applications and begin letting students apply by the end of this month due to fewer students showing up for class than expected on Tuesday.

CSUB stopped taking applications for spring quarter last month after the CSU Chancellor's office gave campuses lower growth targets than expected, a direct result of an at least 11 percent state budget cut to the CSU system this year.

But as of the first day of fall classes on Tuesday, enrollment growth was less than expected.

That means more room for students in winter and spring.

There were 7,622 students enrolled, 238 more than the first day of classes last year. CSUB's director of institutional planning, Terry Dunn, projects that to climb to 8,000 by the end of this month. But that's still about 300 less than what was anticipated from the number of fall applications received.

"We're going to start accepting students in the winter and we think we'll now be able to open up spring," Dunn said.

CSUB's associate vice president of admissions, Homer Montalvo, said a final decision won't be made until census date, the last day classes can be dropped, on Sept. 29.

Students still have about another week from today to register late and enroll in classes. Montalvo said there is also a possibility of lifting a newly imposed 17-unit student course limit.

That will help senior sociology major Adam Turner.

"I'm trying to be done by summer," said Turner, 23. "But to do that I will eventually need to go over 17 units."

Montalvo said some students would take up to 25 units before the restriction was imposed for this quarter.

Exceptions were being made. Desmond Fuzee, one quarter away from getting a degree in sociology, was allowed to take 20 units with a signature from his dean.

But sophomore Cache Bruce, 19, said she was worried she would have to drop her aerobics class.

"I have 18 units. I'm going to have to drop one of my classes," Bruce said.

Although course loads are being limited, students are paying 35 percent more for classes. The tuition increases set by the CSU board of trustees are meant to offset part of the budget cuts.

Junior biology major Louis Madera, 20, said he noticed some professors using less paper in an effort to save money.

"The fees are higher. I think it's kind of weird how the fees go up and yet we have less resources," Madera said.

In terms of budgets, full-time-equivalent students are what are used to calculate enrollment, rather than actual head counts. A full-time-equivalent course load for one full-time-equivalent student is 15 units. Dunn said the average unit load per student is down from 12.8 to 12.69 units per quarter, further lowering growth.

The school was budgeted this year for 6,807 full-time-equivalent students. Fall is the quarter with the highest enrollment and it's projected now that there will be 6,747 full-time-equivalent students enrolled.

Schools that exceed their growth targets can be penalized financially in the following year's budget.