For the first time ever, the California State University system will be turning away eligible freshman applicants, as system-wide impaction was declared at the Board of Trustees meeting in Long Beach on Wednesday.

With $215 million already lacking from the university system's operational costs and the state asking for another $66 million in mid-semester cuts, the CSU Academic Senate passed a resolution for impaction last week as a response to the state legislature's inability to provide the resources necessary to fund the 2009-2010 enrollment demand, senate members said.

"It's unprecedented in CSU history," said SF State president Robert Corrigan. "Never before have we been forced to deny admission to qualified students."

According to the senate resolution, the university's current enrollment is approximately 10,000 students above the level for which it receives state support.

Chancellor Charles Reed approved of the proposed impaction, which will take effect in fall 2009. The decision was officially announced by the Committee on Educational Policy at the trustees' meeting.

The impaction means that the CSU will not only curtail freshman admission to all programs on all campuses, but will also add admission criteria to the existing requirements.

Also, each campus will now give priority admission to applicants from their area; for instance, San Francisco county residents will get priority for SF State while others will go on a waiting list. Priority will also be granted to military veterans and transfers from California community colleges.

Campuses that are still in the growth process, such as Cal State East Bay, are encouraged to seek the chancellor's permission to draw from outside their immediate geographic area.

Reed said that the impaction will only be reversed if the state legislature boosts funding to the CSU system, which is the largest university system in the nation.

Corrigan remarked that it reflects on the general economic situation of the state. "It's a terrible statement about the lack of finances in California," he said.

"Obviously, the state and national budgets are really bad," said Darlene Yee, member of the CSU Academic Senate and gerontology professor at SF State. "The senate had no other recourse than to declare impaction."

Reed and the senate said they decided on impaction out of their desire to preserve the CSU system's ability to provide "authentic access…to high quality facilities and academic programs to which [students] are entitled."

"The campus can't afford to serve students excellence and quality education, so we have to be careful in how many students we take," Yee said. "It's doing them a disservice if we admit them and they can't graduate or get into classes."

Corrigan says that at SF State, efforts will be made to help students meet their academic goals in spite of the impaction and the budget cuts.

"We will make every effort to take care of graduating seniors, encourage students to graduate earlier and get their degrees in an expeditious manner," he said.

Students are unhappy about the impaction and said they will continue to fight against it.

"We're not going to put up with this," said anthropology major Shwan Zandi. "There will be more rallies and protests to come."