BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Gloria Romero, Chair
2009-2010 Regular Session
BILL NO: AB 2401
AUTHOR: Block
AMENDED: May 28, 2010
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: June 30, 2010
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Kathleen Chavira
SUBJECT : California State University Admissions Policy
KEY POLICY ISSUES
Should the autonomy of the California State University to
develop and implement an admissions policy, based upon the
Legislature's stated intent, be restricted?
Should all CSU campuses prioritize local area applicants or
is it reasonable that some campuses would draw from
applicants statewide?
SUMMARY
This bill requires the California State University (CSU),
within the existing categories of admission priority
delineated in law, to grant applicants who reside in the
campus' local service area, as defined, and who meet
relevant admissions criteria, priority admission over other
California residents or out of state-applicants applying as
first-time freshmen or sophomores.
BACKGROUND
Current law declares the Legislature's intent regarding the
categories of priority for purposes of undergraduate
resident student enrollment planning and admission at the
University of California (UC) and the CSU. This order of
priority is as follows:
Continuing undergraduate students in good standing.
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California community college students who have
successfully completed a course of study in an
approved transfer agreement program.
Other California community college students who have
met all requirements for transfer.
Other qualified transfer students.
California residents entering at the freshman or
sophomore levels.
Current law also declares the Legislature's intent that
within each of the preceding categories, priority
consideration for admission be granted in the following
order:
California residents who are recently released
veterans of the US Armed Forces, with priority within
this group to be given to veterans who were enrolled
in good standing prior to military service.
Transfers from California public community colleges.
Previously enrolled applicants provided they left the
campus in good standing.
Applicants for a degree or credential objective not
generally offered at other public higher education
institutions in California.
Applicants for whom the distance to attend another
institution would create financial or other hardship.
In the case of California community college transfer
students, current law requires that preference be given to
students from historically underrepresented or economically
disadvantaged families to the fullest extent possible in
transfer admissions decisions. (Education Code 66202)
Current law also requires the CSU and UC to maintain a
student body comprised of 60 percent upper division and 40
percent lower division students and declares the
Legislature's intent that this goal be reached and
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maintained by instituting programs and policies that
increase the number of transfer students, rather than by
denying places to eligible freshmen applicants. (EC
66201.5)
ANALYSIS
This bill :
1) Restricts the autonomy of the CSU to develop and
implement an admissions policy for undergraduate
resident students based upon the Legislature's stated
intent.
2) Requires that, within each of the categories
delineated in current law for priority in enrollment
planning and admissions, the CSU grant applicants who
meet relevant admission criteria and reside in the
campus' local service area priority in admissions over
other California residents or out of state-applicants
applying as first-time freshmen or sophomores.
3) Provides that any applicant granted admission under
the bill's provisions is subject to any additional
admissions criteria resulting from impaction of a
major.
4) Defines "local service area" for purposes of the bill.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill . The CSU announced that it would be
reducing enrollment by 40,000 students in the 2009-10
and 2010-11 academic years due to budget challenges.
According to the author, certain campuses have reduced
their enrollment by drastically cutting their
admittance of students within their defined local
service area. This year, San Diego State University,
(SDSU) denied 1,740 fully qualified local students
admission. The author contends that the longstanding
CSU policy of admitting local students is not codified
and as such presents a situation where campuses can
deny local students admission with little to no
notification of a change in policy. This bill will
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remedy the situation by formally establishing local
service areas and ensuring that qualified local
students are granted admission to their local campus.
2) Local admission guarantee . This bill defers the
definition of "local service area" to CSU Coded
Memorandum AA-2005-05 which delineates the geographic
territory assigned to each campus for purposes of
providing local high schools and community college
information about the CSU and its campuses and for
campus impaction purposes.
Local first-time freshmen and upper-division transfer
students are defined as
those students who graduate from a high school district or
community college district, respectively, historically
served by a CSU campus in that
region. Under the guarantee, CSU eligible local first-time
freshman and upper-division transfer students are required
to be admitted to an impacted campus on the basis of
established CSU system admission
policies. According to the CSU, the local admission
guarantee applies to
impacted campuses, but not to impacted majors and programs.
3) Impaction . An undergraduate major, program, or
campus is designated as impacted (subject to approval
by the Chancellor) when it receives more eligible
applicants during the initial filing period than it
can accommodate given its instructional resources and
physical capacity. Impaction may be defined by
specific program or by the entering class level (i.e.
first -time freshmen or upper division transfers), or
some combination of these. Programs or campuses are
then authorized to include supplemental criteria
(approved by the Chancellor) to screen applicants
within a specific enrollment category.
Campuses that are impacted are authorized to implement
supplemental
admission criteria for applicants who reside outside the
local area of the
campus, but CSU eligible local first-time freshman and
local upper-division
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transfer students are required to be admitted to an
impacted campus on the basis of established CSU systemwide
admission policies. However,
admission to a specific program cannot be assured if the
program is impacted.
According the CSU Enrollment and Management Policy and
Practices,
consistent with the enrollment priorities outlined in
statute, California
Community College transfer students who have successfully
concluded a
course of study in an approved transfer agreement program
receive priority over all other applicants to the CSU.
4) Current status . The CSU reports that, of its 23
campuses, 12 are impacted at the upper division
transfer level, 13 are impacted for first time
freshmen, and two, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (SLO) and
San Diego State University (SDSU) are impacted in all
majors. As of 2008, all campuses, except SLO and SDSU
indicate that they accept all first-time freshmen
applicants that graduate from high schools in the
local service area and meet systemwide eligibility
criteria.
SLO has reportedly been impacted for over twenty
years. SDSU was recently
approved to declare impaction at each major by the CSU. At
SDSU, at the first-time freshmen level 80 percent of
the class is selected on the basis
of an eligibility index higher than that required for
regular CSU admission. The remaining 20 percent are
selected on the basis of local area
entitlement, socioeconomic or education factors,
exceptional talents, or other criteria.
5) What's the effect ? As currently drafted the bill
would continue to assign lowest priority for
enrollment to freshmen and sophomore applicants, i.e.
local first time freshmen would not necessarily
displace out of area upper division transfer students.
Local service area applicants would be given priority
over other California residents or other students
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applying as first time freshmen or sophomores only,
and would be granted this priority over non-local area
first-time freshman or sophomore applicants within
each enrollment category.
Nonetheless, the committee may wish to consider the
following:
It appears that only the SLO and SDSU
campuses do not prioritize local area first time
freshman applicants. Does it make sense to
implement a statewide statutory change for an
issue that only exists at two campuses?
What if the desired program or major is not
available at an applicant's local CSU campus?
Would this bill limit access to specialized or
high demand programs? Would it result in the
creation of more of these programs at nonimpacted
campuses?
Should all CSU campuses prioritize local
area applicants or is it reasonable that some
campuses would draw from applicants statewide?
Should the discretion of the CSU and its
campuses to manage their enrollment be restricted
when funding (General Fund offset by fee
increases and lottery funds) has declined by
about $375 million since 2007-08?
1) Related legislation . AB 2402 (Block), also on the
committee's agenda for consideration today, requires
the CSU Trustees to ensure that any changes in the
admission criteria for campus admission comply with
specified consultation, public meeting, notification
and disclosure requirements, and prohibits any change
from becoming effective for one year, or six months,
if the change is based upon the resources of the local
service area of the affected campus.
2) Policy arguments .
Proponents contend that the ever-growing cost of
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higher education is further multiplied when students
are not admitted to their local college and then are
forced to move or undertake a costly commute. Students
must be provided every possibility to achieve when
applying to their local State University.
Opponents contend that, if we assume the state's
support for higher education does not fully recover
and demands continue to grow, we could have campuses
only serving local students. This could compromise
student access if a local campus does not offer the
desired degree or program, or if a non-local campus
has a strong reputation in a student's chosen field of
study. Additionally, the state could incur additional
costs if the CSU has to replicate these programs at
all campuses in order to ensure access.
SUPPORT
American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees (AFL-CIO)
OPPOSITION
California State University