Students voice concerns about enrollment numbers impacting required classes

by Leah Spiers and Isaura Nees

Students across various majors are concerned about their majors with lower enrollment numbers. Classes necessary for graduation within the major are not guaranteed to be offered due to the lack of students to fill them.

Students within more highly populated majors face the difficulty of competing with a large number of peers for a limited amount of space in their required classes.

Iridian Casarez from the university’s Marketing and Communications team said programs’ funding mainly depends on student enrollment, but they can receive extra funding from grants, public service projects and donations.

“Overall student enrollment impacts funding for academic departments,” Casarez said. “The number of full-time equivalent students determines California State University budget allocations through tuition and fees.”

Psychology has been one of the highest-populated majors offered at Cal Poly Humboldt for the last ten years, with numbers for the spring 2026 semester reaching 385 students based on the participation census taken March 2 of this year. It is currently the largest populated major on campus.

“Some of the major requirement classes, they only do one class session per semester,” said Jonathan Price, a junior psychology major. “And with it being a required class that so many students need to take, the wait list is enormous.”

Although the census of this year shows that the numbers for the major are less than they have been in the past, the large number of students presents a problem for those within the department.

“A lot of the classes are only offered at one time slot, and there’s one class of it,” Skylar Rawitch, a junior in the psychology department, said. “And it’s specifically an issue with the classes that you have to take to graduate.”

Rebecca Robertson, dean of Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences at College of the Redwoods and previous director of the Individualized Degree Program (IDP) at CPH, noted the increased enrollment since it was first offered in fall 2024. Its first spring semester consisted of roughly 52 students, but grew to 107 as of March 2 of this year.

“I did not expect it would grow so quickly,” Robertson said. “I projected a slow growth with about 20 students and then it grew to 50 around the end of the first year.”

Jessica Citti, the current director of IDP, highlighted the flexibility of the major, with each degree plan tailored to an individual’s interest in their desired career field. She shared how roughly 45% of students are mainly online and the rest consist of transfers and returning students.

Spanish resides among the lowest- populated majors, with only eight students enrolled as of the spring 2026 census.

“Low student count has seriously adverse impacts on some majors,” said Sara Hart, chair of the department of Applied Humanities, which encompasses the Spanish major. “It’s difficult to offer sufficient upper division courses to run a full program if the program itself doesn’t have sort of a critical mass of students in their classes.”

Wayra Ayelen Klocker Gregori, a double major in both Spanish and English, feels he is missing out on peer interaction.

“Hearing input from other students is also helpful,” Klocker Gregori said. “Which is why it would be nice to have more people involved.”

Ramona Bell, chair of the CRGS department shared how students in the program want to better the world and their communities. But given the high demand in other majors, departments and the current political climate, there’s been push back.

“With the school being a polytechnic and STEM focused, our major can get lost in the sauce,” Bell said.

Compared to highly populated STEM majors, CRGS consists roughly of 17 students as of the census taken March 2 of this year.

Dean Jophiel Washington is a third- year transfer student with a major in multicultural career studies within the CRGS department. With a passion for education, he hopes to raise awareness to ensure all academic programs are supported.

“I love my major and I love what I’m doing,” Washington said. “It’s something I would like to see be around for a long time.”

All enrollment numbers by major were taken from the Cal Poly Humboldt Program Participation Reports for undergraduate major participation. Numbers for total undergraduate population for the Spring 2024 and Spring 2026 semesters were taken from the IRAR All Student Demographics page.