BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2402
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 12, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 2402 (Block) - As Introduced: February 19, 2010
Policy Committee: Higher
EducationVote:6-1
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill requires the California State University (CSU) to
follow specified public notice criteria prior to adopting a
change in the admissions criteria that affects students in the
CSU campus local service area (LSA), as defined, and requires
such changes to become effective only after a period of at least
one year has elapsed following approval by the CSU Board of
Trustees. Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires the president of a CSU campus to do all of the
following prior to adopting a change in the criteria for
admission that affects applicants in the LSA of a CSU campus,
including changes to transfer requirements, elimination of
majors, and determinations regarding impaction of majors:
a) Consult, in a public meeting, with the governing boards
of school districts and community college districts and
with community organizations located within the LSA of the
affected campus.
b) Hold three public hearings in the LSA of the affected
campus to solicit public comments relative to the proposed
changes in admissions criteria.
c) Present the proposed change in admissions criteria at
meetings of the governing boards of all high school
districts, unified school districts, and community college
districts within the LSA of the affected campus.
d) Provide public notice of the proposed change in
admissions criteria, as specified, and at least 30 days
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before the first public meeting or public hearing.
e) Submit the proposed change to the CSU Trustees for
approval after first meeting all of the above requirements.
2)Stipulates that a change in admissions criteria shall become
effective only after a period of at least one year following
approval by the Trustees.
3)Defines the LSA for a campus as the area set forth in the CSU
Coded Memorandum AA-2005-05, dated February 23, 2005.
FISCAL EFFECT
Campuses would incur additional costs to conduct public
meetings. Other costs for consultations, attending meetings to
present proposed changes, and providing public notices would be
absorbable. Given the several types of changes subject to the
consultation and notification requirements, and the existing
budget pressures facing CSU, it is possible that many or most
campuses would be impacted by this bill. Assuming $10,000 per
campus for each change, if more than 15 of the 23 campuses were
affected in any year, costs systemwide would exceed $150,000.
In addition, requiring campuses to wait at least one year
following board approval to implement the change in admission
criteria, could, in the face of budget pressures, require
campuses to adopt less efficient means of allocating reductions,
resulting in higher downstream costs.
COMMENTS
1)Background . General Fund support for CSU has declined by about
$620 million (20%) between 2007-08 and the current year. As a
result, CSU intends to admit no new 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.
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Campus impaction (otherwise known as campuswide 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 the following Fall.
Of the five impacted CSU campuses, only SDSU has ended its
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 it 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 1,000 next fall-the campus has noted that the seniors
who will be denied admission under this policy still will
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, within three years.
2)Purpose . According to the author, "When many potential
students reside within a local service area of a campus, any
change in the admissions policy without their notification
results in students who had planned to attend locally as their
only feasible option now witnessing their opportunities for
college unfairly disappear."
3)Related Legislation . AB 2401 (Block), also on today's
committee agenda, requires CSU to provide applicants meeting
relevant admissions criteria and residing in the 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.
4)Costs could be reduced by (a) reducing the circumstances, such
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as elimination of majors, under which the bill would apply and
(b) reducing or eliminating the implementation period
following Trustee approval. It is important to note that, with
late enactment of the state budget, CSU officials have little
time to make resource allocation decisions prior to the start
of the academic year.
Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081