I don’t think recruiting more OOS students will work for them. If they can’t attract CA students, why would an OOS student pay exponentially more for the same experience?
CSUs are meant to serve the vast majority of CA high school graduates. Here’s why I think some of these schools are seeing a dip in enrollment:
- The schools mentioned have “commuter” reputations and may not focus on the on-campus living experience. If you are a student looking for a rich on-campus experience, you are not looking at CSU East Bay.
- CA community colleges are becoming a more popular (and economical) option and there’s increasing awareness of TAG and other admissions programs that allow them to transfer to more desirable UCs and CSUs from CA community colleges
- They have not networked enough with the high schools in their immediate vicinity to set up guaranteed admissions programs
- Perhaps they are also suffering from a proliferation of negative content online from students who have gone there (I don’t know if this is true, but if I were to look at what’s changed between 2015 and today, one of those things is the ease in which people share and find information about real experiences. If those schools aren’t delivering for their students, word will get out pretty fast.