The news couldn't be better for California State University, Channel Islands.

Despite budget cuts and a directive from the state Legislature to halt enrollment growth, the university's classrooms and residence halls will be filled this fall, and school officials haven't had to deny admission to any qualified students.

"Nobody's going to be turned away," said Ted Lucas, interim vice president for academic affairs at CSUCI. "And it's not going to be a financial problem."

That's a relief for the campus, where administrators feared they would have to shut the doors on eligible students just as the university was getting off the ground.

"It's where I'd hoped we'd be," said Richard Rush, president of CSUCI. "We want to take all the students we possibly can, given the directives of the (CSU) system and the Legislature."

The news isn't as good elsewhere in the state. The University of California last month announced that 2,600 freshmen applicants were denied fall admission, but told they could enroll in the winter or spring terms.

An additional 7,600 UC-eligible students were denied admission and redirected to community colleges with the promise they could transfer to UC later. Several CSU campuses will send out similar notices to students later this month, said Clara Potes-Fellow, spokeswoman for the CSU Chancellor's Office.

CSUCI won't be sending out such letters.

Of the 3,100 freshmen who initially applied to the university this past fall, more than 1,500 never completed their applications -- a form of self-selection that is not unusual in the CSU system. These days, students often apply to all or several of the state's 23 CSUs, then later decide which ones they are serious about, Lucas said.

Of the remaining freshmen applications, 853 were admitted. The students who were denied did not meet the minimum academic requirements for CSU, Lucas said.

Of those who were admitted, 333 have sent deposits and indicated they intended to enroll. That's about 100 more freshmen than the university planned to accept, but not enough to cause problems, Lucas said.

That's partly because the number of transfer students expected to enroll is slightly lower than university officials planned. CSUCI received 941 transfer applications and admitted 439 students. Of those, about 350 are expected to enroll in the fall, Lucas said. The commit date for transfer students isn't until June 1.

That still puts CSUCI slightly above its target enrollment of 1,627 full-time equivalent students, but school officials say that gives them flexibility in case students decide not to enroll or spring enrollment dips. The key is to stay at or above the target, Lucas said.

The strong enrollment numbers are translating to high interest in the university's first student housing facility, Loma Vista Village, a three-building, 353-bed complex that is under construction and should be finished in time for the fall semester, said Greg Sawyer, vice president for student affairs.

When construction began, school officials figured they would have a much larger class of new students next year and would have no trouble filling the complex with new freshmen. When they learned their new crop of students would be smaller, they opened the facility to all other students.

So far, 296 students have sent deposits for student housing, he said. That's about 84 percent of capacity, and the university needed to have 80 percent capacity to break even financially.

The students "are just so excited, knowing the housing is brand-new," Sawyer said. "No one's ever lived there before."