BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2402
Page 1
CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 2402 (Block)
As Amended June 17, 2010
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |50-26|(June 6, 2010) |SENATE: |28-1 |(August 18, |
| | | | | |2010) |
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Original Committee Reference: HIGHER ED.
SUMMARY : 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 a
change in admissions criteria that affects the eligibility of
applicants residing within the LSA of the affected campus to
become effective only after a period of at least one year has
elapsed after approval of that change by the CSU Board of
Trustees (BOT). Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires 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 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) Provide public notice of the proposed change in
admissions criteria, as specified, and at least 10 days
before the first public meeting or public hearing; and,
d) Submit the proposed change to the CSU Chancellor for
approval, who shall report the decision regarding approval,
and the reasoning behind the decision, to the CSU Board of
Trustees in writing at the next regularly scheduled meeting
AB 2402
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of the Trustees.
2)Require a change in the criteria to take effect only after a
period at least one year has elapsed following approval by the
CSU Chancellor, unless the change is based on resources, in
which case it may take effect after six months.
3)Defines the LSA for a campus as the area set forth in the CSU
Coded Memorandum AA-2005-05, dated February 23, 2005,
including any subsequent amendments.
The Senate amendments allow CSU to make changes in its admission
criteria to a campus after six months if the change is based on
resources and make technical changes.
AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill is substantially similar to
the version approved by the Senate.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, campuses would incur additional costs to conduct
public meetings. Assuming $10,000 per campus for each change,
if 10 campuses were affected in any year, costs systemwide would
be $100,000.
COMMENTS : General Fund support for CSU has declined by about
$620 million (20%) between 2007-08 and the current year. As a
result, CSU 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).
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
AB 2402
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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 20 years. SDSU was
recently approved to declare impaction at each major by the CSU.
At SDSU, at the first-time freshmen level 80% of the class is
selected on the basis of an eligibility index higher than that
required for regular CSU admission. The remaining 20% are
selected on the basis of local area entitlement, socioeconomic
or education factors, exceptional talents, or other criteria.
Analysis Prepared by : Sandra Fried / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960
FN: 0006089