BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2401
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 2401 (Block)
As Amended May 28, 2010
Majority vote
HIGHER EDUCATION 6-3 APPROPRIATIONS 12-5
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|Ayes:|Block, Chesbro, Fong, |Ayes:|Fuentes, Ammiano, |
| |Galgiani, Portantino, | |Bradford, |
| |Ruskin | |Charles Calderon, Coto, |
| | | |Davis, Monning, Ruskin, |
| | | |Skinner, Solorio, |
| | | |Torlakson, Torrico |
| | | | |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
|Nays:|Norby, Adams, Fuller |Nays:|Conway, Harkey, Miller, |
| | | |Nielsen, Norby |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Requires the California State University (CSU) to
provide applicants residing in the local service area (LSA)
admission to the applicant's local CSU campus over other
California residents or out-of-state applicants entering as
first-time freshman or sophomores. Specifically, this bill :
1)Modifies legislative intent language by stating that it is
intended with respect to CSU admissions, rather than admission
priority practices, for the segment to follow in numerical
order the categories of students as enumerated in current law.
(See Existing Law section below.)
2)Modifies legislative intent by stating it is intended that,
within the existing categories of students, specified groups
be granted admission, rather than receive priority
consideration in admissions practices of CSU.
3)Requires CSU to provide admission, within existing enrollment
categories, to applicants residing in the LSA of a CSU campus
over other California residents or out-of-state applicants
entering as first-time freshman or sophomores, provided they
meet relevant admissions criteria.
4)Defines an LSA as the CSU service area for the campus as set
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forth in the CSU Coded Memorandum AA-2005-05, dated February
23, 2005, including any subsequent amendments.
EXISTING LAW requires UC and CSU to maintain a student body
comprised of 60% upper-division students and 40% lower-division
students and states legislative intent that both systems do the
following:
1)Provide priority enrollment, in numerical order, to the
following categories of students:
a) Continuing undergraduate students in good standing;
b) CCC transfer students who have successfully concluded a
course of study in an approved transfer agreement program;
c) Other CCC students who have met all of the requirements
for transfer, giving preference to students from
historically underrepresented groups or economically
disadvantaged families to the fullest extent possible in
transfer admissions decisions;
d) Other qualified transfer students; and,
e) California residents entering at the freshman or
sophomore levels.
2)Provide priority consideration in admissions practice to the
following groups of applicants within each of the enrollment
categories described above:
a) California residents who are recently released veterans
of the armed forces of the United States, giving priority
to veterans who were previously enrolled in good standing
at a UC or CSU campus over other veterans recently released
from military service;
b) CCC transfers;
c) Applicants who have been previously enrolled at the
campus to which they are applying, provided they left this
institution in good standing;
d) Applicants who have a degree or credential objective
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that is not generally offered at other public institutions
of higher learning within California; and,
e) Applicants for whom the distance involved in attending
another institution would create financial or other
hardships.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, to the extent impacted CSU campuses are unable to
serve non-local students because of priority admission for local
students, and to the extent more campuses become impacted due to
the enrollment demands of local area students and to budget
limitations, there could be pressure to replicate certain
high-demand or specialty programs at non-impacted campuses.
Depending on the type of program, start-up costs for each could
range from several hundred thousand dollars to a few million
dollars depending on the need for facilities and equipment.
COMMENTS : General Fund support for CSU has declined by about
$620 million, or 20%, between 2007-08 and the current year; in
addition, CSU has been overenrolled by 40,000 students. As a
result, CSU intends to admit no students in spring 2010 and has
set a goal to reduce overall enrollment by about 40,000 students
over a two-year period. To accomplish this reduction, CSU has
employed various strategies. According to CSU, campuses are
still required to admit all local CSU-eligible first-time
freshmen and local upper-division transfer students per the
usual established admissions policy, unless the campus declares
itself impacted.
Campus impaction means that a campus has exhausted existing
enrollment capacity in terms of the instructional resources and
physical capacity of the campus, and because the campus receives
more eligible applicants during the Fall admission application
filing period than can be accommodated, the campus must
therefore restrict enrollment to the campus for a specific
enrollment category (i.e. first-time freshmen). As of November
2009, Fullerton, Long Beach, Cal Poly Pomona, San Diego, and
Sonoma are designated as impacted CSU campuses. Students
interested in an impacted major or campus must apply for
admission during the Fall filing period for admission in the
following Fall.
Of the five impacted CSU campuses, only SDSU has ended its
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policy of admitting every qualified applicant in its LSA. SDSU
is continuing to give special preference to high school seniors
from this area by guaranteeing they constitute at least 37% of
incoming freshmen. This is the average representation over the
last 11 years but is considerably lower than the 54% in the past
two years. While SDSU has acknowledged that dropping the
admission guarantee for seniors in SDSU's LSA would disrupt the
plans of many students-the number of local freshmen admitted to
SDSU could go down by as many as 1,700 next fall-the campus has
noted that the seniors who will be denied admission under this
policy still will be provided a guarantee of subsequent
admission to SDSU if the student completes general education
course work and earns a GPA of at least 2.4, or the GPA required
for their intended major, at a California Community College
within three years.
Analysis Prepared by : Sandra Fried / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960
FN: 0004679