Admission to Cal State May Be Tightened : College Prep Policy Supported Despite Worry for Minorities

Despite worries that many black and Latino students could be screened out, the California State University’s education policy committee voted Tuesday to make a strong college preparatory program in high school a prerequisite for admission.

University officials hope that the higher admission standards, expected to be formally approved by the full board today, will stem the high dropout rate in the state universities.

Only about one in four Cal State freshmen earns a degree within the system within five years, and many of the dropouts are said to leave because of academic difficulties. The attrition rate is especially high among minority students. Only about one in eight gets a degree within five years, according to Cal State figures.

Requirements for 1988

The new standards would require freshmen entering in 1988--students who are in 10th grade this year--to take 15 academic courses in high school.

Only 9% of this year’s freshmen took the full set of courses that will be mandatory three years from now, according to an analysis completed recently by the university, although most were only two or three courses short.

“This is one area where California is not first. We are embarrassingly far down the line in dealing with this issue,” said Cal State Chancellor W. Ann Reynolds, who told trustees that at least 30 state university systems have raised their admission standards in recent years.

By law, the Cal State system is required to admit any student who, based on grades and test scores, ranks in the top third of the state’s high school seniors, a standard unchanged by Tuesday’s action.

Until last year, however, a student could enter with reasonably good grades in any set of high school courses.

Beginning in 1984, entering students were required to have taken at least four years of English and two years of mathematics. The new standards would add another year of math and would require courses in science, history, foreign language and art.

The toughest issue for the trustees centered on whether the new rules will help more minority students succeed in college or whether they will bar them from getting in.

‘Absolutely Pivotal’

Good academic preparation in high school “is absolutely pivotal for the success of minority young people in the university,” Reynolds said. By adopting the higher standards, the university “will get a message out to high schools and to parents” about the importance of academic course work.

Latino and black members of the board said, however, that new rules may send out another message to minorities.

“I think minorities are very much afraid--afraid they are going to lose ground because of this,” said trustee Celia Ballesteros, an attorney from San Diego.

More than 50 students, most of them minorities, marched in protest outside the Long Beach headquarters of the Cal State system. Several carried signs calling the proposal racist.

Rudy Acuna, a Chicano studies professor at California State University, Northridge, called the new rules elitist and said they “further the class system in education.”

Ballesteros said many high schools serving mostly black and Latino students do not offer a full range of college preparatory courses. “There are some high schools that would have zero admits to Cal State if this proposal had been in effect,” Ballesteros said.

‘I’m ... Paranoid’

“I’m concerned, even paranoid about this,” said trustee Willie Stennis of Culver City. “How many inner-city kids are are going to get in? How are they are going to make it?” he asked.

University officials said students who are missing one or two courses could be granted a “conditional admission” under which they would be required to make up the subjects at the university.

Reynolds and several trustees said they would also monitor the new standards to see if they had “any negative impact on minorities.”

After a two-hour debate in which the committee voted down a motion to drop the foreign language requirement, the committee approved the standards without a dissenting vote.

The new rules add to what has been a steady push since 1982 for more traditional programs in high schools.

In the 1960s and 1970s, high schools expanded the number of courses they offered, hoping to keep more students interested and in school. For example, English literature was expanded to include courses that used films or rock lyrics. Other students were offered course credit for working outside of school.

By 1980, however, education officials were bemoaning the deterioration of high school curriculums, and university officials were complaining that students were not prepared for college.

In 1981, the 19-campus Cal State system reported that fewer than half of its freshmen had taken four years of traditional English and three years of math in high school. Soon after, trustees voted to require students to take certain English and math courses before they could be admitted.

This year, the board is taking the next step, prescribing a full college preparatory curriculum.