BILL ANALYSIS Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair 2402 (Block) Hearing Date: 08/12/2010 Amended: 06/17/2010 Consultant: Dan Troy Policy Vote: ED 8-0 _________________________________________________________________ ____ BILL SUMMARY: AB 2402 would require the Trustees of the California State University to comply with specified requirements when implementing a change in campus admission criteria. _________________________________________________________________ ____ Fiscal Impact (in thousands) Major Provisions 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 Fund CSU admissions $100 $100 General _________________________________________________________________ ____ STAFF COMMENTS: SUSPENSE FILE. Prior to adopting a change in the criteria for admission to, a CSU campus would be required to do the following: Consult with stakeholders, including the governing boards of area K-12 and community college districts. Hold three public hearings in the local service to solicit public comments. Provide public notice if the change in criteria on the campus website, as specified. Publish on the campus website all of the public comments received, as well as the responses to those comments. Publish on the campus website the final decision on the proposed change and distribute the decision to community officials and local high schools. Require the president of the affected campus to notify the Chancellor of CSU about the approval decision, including the reasoning behind the decision. Require a change in the criteria to take effect only after a period at least one year has elapsed, unless the change is based on resources, in which case it may take effect after six months. Consistent with current law, regulations adopted by the CSU Board of Trustees requires CSU campuses to admit all local CSU-eligible freshman applications and upper divisions transfer students. An exception to this rule is allowed when a campus is deemed to be impacted, as approved by the Chancellor. A campus is considered impacted when it does not have the financial resources or physical capacity to accept all eligible students. Under these circumstances, the campus may institute new criteria to limit enrollment for a specific category, such as first-time freshmen applicants, or for specific majors. Page 2 AB 2402 (Block) While several CSU campuses are deemed to be impacted, changes made to admission criteria at San Diego State University (SDSU). According to the author, recently implemented admission criteria changes were made at CSU without adequate notice to the community. This disadvantaged students that had tailored their academic coursework toward SDSU's admission criteria. This bill would seek to address the issue by requiring more notice when a campus changes its admission criteria. The state's recent budget deficits have resulted in major reductions in CSU funding (over $600 million since the 2007-08 fiscal year). In response, CSU has is attempting to reduce enrollment by 40,000 over two years and did not offer spring admission in 2010. According to CSU, this bill would result in annual costs of approximately $100,000. Staff notes that by limiting changes from taking effect before six months, it is possible that CSU could be limited in its ability to realize savings due to budget reductions. In all likelihood, CSU will manage the issue by broadly noticing potential changes in case they are necessary to implement.