Intending University of Otago students, mainly first-year enrollees, will have to compete for 224 fewer places in general undergraduate courses next year, as the university tries to decelerate burgeoning roll growth.
The university council, on Tuesday, established roll caps on previously open entry arts, humanities, sciences and commerce courses.
The caps will mainly affect first-year domestic (New Zealand) students, plus a small number of students re-enrolling after more than two years away from university study or students transferring from other universities.
There are already first-year and recommencing enrolment caps on teacher education and physical education degrees.
The expansion of enrolment caps has been forced by a change in government policy which means tertiary institution rolls are capped and the government no longer subsidises every New Zealand student who wants to enrol. International students are not affected because they pay full fees.
In May, Otago announced enrolment caps for several courses beginning in semester two this year and continuing next year and beyond. Only the semester two caps were announced at the time.
Deciding the 2011 caps had "obviously been quite a difficult process", vice-chancellor Prof Sir David Skegg said at Tuesday's meeting.
They had been arrived at after an "exhaustive analysis" of the academic calibre of 2010 first-year students, and after examining enrolment patterns over the past four years.
However, no-one could be certain how many domestic students would apply to enrol next year and what their chosen area of study would be, he said.
For that reason, deputy academic and international vice-chancellor Prof Vernon Squire had been given the power to vary the caps by up to 10% per programme and by 2% overall.
The university has already said it will introduce a two-tier enrolment system for first-year and recommencing domestic students from next year.
Students with strong academic records will be offered guaranteed entry, but those falling below that standard will have to apply and take their chances based on the number of places available.
"Enhanced admission" places will be offered to Maori and Pacific Island students who do not meet the guaranteed entry criteria.
As part of the enrolment changes, the university has also stopped new enrolments in five sub-degree diploma and certificate courses from next year, discontinued places for "interest-only" students and reduced the number of places available at Summer School.
On the back of strong enrolments generally across the university - particularly at postgraduate level - and additional funded places for trainee doctors, Otago is still expecting a record roll of 19,984 equivalent full-time students next year. Because not all students study full-time, the headcount roll is likely to top 22,000.
