Panel’s Plan Would Alter Admissions Policy at UC

More than 10,000 students who are now eligible under state law to enroll at the University of California would be turned away in an effort to encourage more Californians to attend community colleges, under a plan nearing approval by the Commission for the Review of the Master Plan for Higher Education.

In a last-minute effort to block the proposal, UC officials warned Monday that a plan to limit UC’s freshman and sophomore enrollment to 40% of the undergraduate total would result in a “de facto” and “fundamental” alteration in UC’s admissions policy that would have serious consequences for minority students and would exacerbate the state’s racial problems.

Vote Expected Today

The commission, which is expected to vote on the proposal today, is a 15-member panel charged by the Legislature with considering whether major structural or budgetary changes should be made in California’s three-tired system of higher education. Although the plan would not necessarily be binding on the UC and Cal State systems or on the 106 community colleges, it could, if passed, have a major impact on education policy in the state.

After two years of deliberation, the commission has concluded that the primary responsibility for growth in undergraduate education should take place in the state’s community colleges, rather than at the nine UC campuses or the 19 California State University campuses, according to the commission’s executive director, Lee R. Kerschner.

One way of achieving this goal, Kerschner said, is to put a ceiling on UC and Cal State freshman and sophomore enrollment--thus encouraging more students to attend community colleges and then transfer to UC or Cal State as juniors.

Under the existing “Master Plan,” which has guided California’s colleges and universities since 1960, UC has been asked to set a 40-60 ratio of lower classmen to juniors and seniors as a “goal,” but until now no ceiling on enrollment has ever been imposed by the state.

Racial Hostilities Feared

Last month, UC President David P. Gardner warned the commission that to set such a ceiling would have particularly serious consequences for minority students, many of whom are barely eligible to attend UC under current admissions practices.

What, in effect, the university would then have to decide is who among the eligible students should be admitted. That, Gardner argued, would bring latent tensions about race and quotas directly to the surface and surely result in even greater racial hostilities on the campuses.

For the past several years, UC, like many selective universities, has faced pressures from blacks and Latinos to boost their enrollments. As the university has responded to these demands, white and Asian-American students have claimed that they have been subjected to reverse discrimination.

Under state law, the upper one-eighth of California high school graduates--as measured by a combination of grades and standardized test scores--are now eligible for admission to the UC system, though not necessarily to the UC campus they prefer. While historically about 5.5% of those admitted have elected to enroll, in recent years that proportion has climbed to 7.5%.

Although no one in the state knows for certain why, many believe it is the result of several factors, including the relatively low cost of UC to students who might have otherwise considered private education, and the declining attractiveness of community colleges, which have in recent years reduced their emphasis on preparing students for advanced university studies.

40% Ceiling

Speaking for UC at the commission’s final round of hearings this week, William R. Frazer, senior vice president, said, “We are opposed to the 40% ceiling because it will not work. It will not provide the instant strengthening of the community college transfer function which you are seeking.”

Frazer cited a survey by UC Berkeley and the American Council of Education which asked Berkeley graduates in 1980 where they would have gone had they not been accepted at that campus. According to the study, 39% would have gone to another UC campus, 18% would have gone to Cal State, 36% would have gone to a private college or university. Only 6% would have gone to a community college, Frazer said.

Despite UC’s protests, Kerschner predicted late last week that the majority of the commission would go along with the plan to impose a ceiling both on UC’s and Cal State’s lower-division enrollment. Such a plan, however, would have no direct impact on Cal State, which currently has a 33-67 ratio of lower-division to upper-division students.