Your Sept. 8 article, "It's college crashing time," about students "crashing" classes at San Diego State University, failed to distinguish between students having access to classes they need academically and classes they prefer based on factors such as the days and times the class is offered. Your omission of this critical distinction may have left readers with an erroneous and dated impression about class availability at San Diego State University.

In the early 1990s, SDSU grappled with mandatory enrollment increases and funding reductions that literally left thousands of admitted students without classes; they truly could not register for classes they needed. Determined to cease admitting more students than could be accommodated by the budget, over the past several years SDSU has implemented meaningful enrollment-management policies. Given that some 40,000 students applied for the roughly 7,000 openings in our entering class, these policies have increased the admission standards to ensure that all admitted students will have access to needed classes.

Every major university has a busy "add/drop" period at the beginning of the semester as students try to add classes or change sections to meet their preferences. Such activity does not indicate that there are not enough classes for students. In fact, thanks in part to a university effort to make students aware of the importance of registering on time during the summer, the number of undergraduate students who registered for classes on time for this fall increased to more than 84 percent. During registration, the university added many course sections in response to unanticipated course demand. These students registered for an average course load of just under 13 credits, the highest such average in recent years, again indicative of class availability.

The substantial reduction in state support has forced SDSU to eliminate some valuable elective courses and offer fewer or larger sections of other courses that students may want. These decisions are extremely regrettable academically, as university education should encourage exploration of all disciplines. But these difficult decisions have been made to ensure that our students will have access to the classes they need.

The university, collectively, has implemented budget reductions with the priority of providing needed classes for our students, and individual faculty make similar decisions on a daily basis out of their commitment to provide a quality education to all of our students.

Nancy A. Marlin
Provost