For years, New Zealanders have been almost assured of a place at university, but as enrolments begin for the 2010 academic year it appears those days are over.

Universities are now warning they will enforce their application closing dates more strictly than ever before as they struggle to keep within government-imposed enrolment limits after a year of strong growth.

This year, the eight universities are expected to collectively exceed the number of domestic students for which they are subsidised by just over 3% with some of their number going as high as 6-7%. They will not receive subsidies for the extra students - only the money the students themselves pay for tuition fees.

Auckland University of Technology along with Massey, Waikato and Victoria universities advised last week that people who tried to enrol late for 2010 courses might miss out altogether. All four also indicated they were considering further restrictions in 2011.

The tighter enrolment conditions are significant in a country where only a handful of courses such as medicine and engineering are subject to enrolment limits. Students who enrolled in a humanities or business course were almost assured of being successful as long as they met the minimum entry requirements.

Though New Zealand moved several years ago to a system of funding tertiary institutions only for an agreed number of students, institutions were generally able to negotiate annual increases to that number. But this year the recession brought an increase in enrolments coupled with minimal increases in government funding.

In addition, the government strongly discourages institutions from exceeding their agreed enrolments by more than 3%. Those that do so could lose funding in future.

Waikato University acting Vice-chancellor Doug Sutton said applications to the university from domestic students for 2010 were about 30% higher than at the same time last year."It's possible that students are applying early to ensure they don't miss out," Sutton said.

Auckland University of Technology Vice-chancellor Derek McCormack said it was likely the university would turn away students earlier than usual because higher application rates meant programmes would fill up more quickly.

"It's likely that we will turn away more students than in previous years and this means good students who would normally gain a place may miss out," he said.

McCormack warned it would be difficult for AUT to avoid exceeding its subsidised domestic EFTS by more than 3%. There was no room for error when the university was already at 103% to the pipeline effect of the previous year's enrolment increase, he said. Other universities are likely to be in a similar position.

john.gerritsen@uw-news.com

* John Gerritsen is editor of NZ Education Review.

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