<p>For Berkeley College of Engineering, students must ask permission to take any additional semesters beyond 8 (or 4 since junior transfer). It is very rare for more than one extra semester to be approved. For Berkeley School of Business, students may take a maximum of 4 semesters after entering the undergraduate business major.</p>
<p>The ceilings on number of semesters and/or credit units exist because most students are in-state and therefore subsidized (with discounted in-state tuition), so that students taking extra time consume more than their fair share of the state subsidy. This particularly an issue for schools which are at full capacity (in California, this means all public universities except for the few non-impacted CSUs). Other public universities also have policies to handle this problem. For example, San Jose State allows high unit seniors to register only for courses needed to complete subject requirements to graduate in their majors. Texas public universities offer a small tuition refund to those who graduate having attempted the minimum number of credit units (or up to about 3 over) for their majors.</p>