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PLATFORM : Adding a Priority

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<i> JOHN GAMBOA, director of the Latino Issues Forum, a San Francisco-based civil</i> -<i> rights group, favors state legislation to improve admissions access to state universities for Latino and black community college students. He told The Times: </i>

A community college education is an asset but a university degree is more important, because university graduates get better access to the policy-making and decision-making jobs. However, it’s difficult for community college students to transfer to our state universities, because various campuses have different academic requirements, a situation that reduces options.

The university system’s academic requirements should be made more uniform and state universities should give priority to under-represented groups when they make admissions policies. There would be no quota. It’s a matter of adding a priority. When two students have equal grade point averages and equal test scores, priority is already given to students who are involved in positive community activities. If two students have equal qualifications--and one of them is Hispanic or black--the person from the under-represented groups should be given the edge.

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