For Those Aiming at College, a New Test : Education: Revised policy gives enrollment priority at overcrowded two-year schools to those with clear goals. Critics say plan penalizes disadvantaged students.

Decades have passed since his last college class, and he has only the vaguest of plans. But Martik Gasparyan is tired of being unemployed. So last week he screwed up his courage and headed off to Glendale Community College.

The middle-aged immigrant, who taught Armenian history in his homeland, hopes to enroll in classes that will hone his English skills and help him get a job. But new state guidelines could make it difficult for Gasparyan to get the classes he needs.

Starting this fall, the Board of Governors for the California Community Colleges system is advising that schools give first crack at enrollment to students who file a matriculation plan that lays out clear academic goals. That means that a student intending to earn a two-year degree, then transfer to a UC campus, could get priority over a laid-off worker who wants to sample business and computer classes before settling on a new career path.

State community college officials concede that this policy is a radical departure from their historic mandate to provide open access to all students. But they argue that in tough fiscal times, when California’s community colleges are turning away 100,000 students each year, they must give priority to those most likely to succeed.

“We’ve had to make some hard choices,” said Ann Reed, vice chancellor for public affairs and communications with the state system. The new enrollment guidelines “reward serious students who are making progress through the education system. These students don’t waste time going round and round. They have a clear direction and they’re not going to accidentally take the wrong classes.”

The state, which adopted the guidelines in May, leaves it up to individual campuses to implement the new policy and publicize it to students. State officials concede that they have no way to enforce the guidelines and plan to survey the community college districts next year before deciding if they need to take more stringent steps.

Although it is too early to gauge the impact, interviews with students and administrators at community colleges found little evidence that colleges have changed the way they do business.

But the recommendations are sparking controversy among educators and agencies that monitor higher education. Some argue that the plan sets up a caste system that by its nature discriminates against less sophisticated students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Others say it penalizes non-traditional students who may need more time to decide what their future holds.

“We’re saying that there are a bunch of people out there whose needs and educational aspirations are less valid, so let’s sock it to them,” said Patrick M. Callan, executive director of the California Higher Education Policy Center in San Jose. “One thing we should have learned from the last go-around is that there are a lot of innocent victims.”

Callan referred to a state law that took effect this spring that requires most students who have a bachelor’s degree and are enrolling in the community college system to pay much stiffer fees--$50 per unit instead of the $13 per unit charged undergraduates.

Although state officials hoped the higher fees would produce $40 million in the first six months of this year, the chancellor’s office said the increase generated just $10 million because thousands of students unwilling to pay the higher fees fled the community college system.

The state has also tightened enrollment procedures for non-legal residents, adopting regulations last year requiring students to show proof of California and United States legal residency to qualify for the $13-per-unit fees. Students without legal papers, even those who have lived in California for years, are charged out-of-state tuition fees that average about $100 per unit, depending on the college.

One who voices concern about how the new regulations will affect poor and minority students is Venancio Gaona, a former president of La Raza Faculty Assn. of the California Community Colleges.

“We cannot focus on those students who come so well-organized that they don’t need us anyway,” said Gaona, a Spanish instructor at Fresno City College who says the school will begin following the guidelines next year.

Statewide, only 600,000 of the 1.5 million community college students have filed matriculation plans, Reed said. Although the procedure varies from college to college, it usually includes attending orientation, taking assessment tests in math and English, meeting with a counselor and writing an educational plan.

Reed said most of the state’s 71 community college districts have some kind of preferential system in place, including the Los Angeles system, which gives top priority to continuing students closest to graduation.

Donald G. Phelps, chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District, said priority enrollment will not be an issue in the nine-campus district this year because enrollment is down districtwide as students who cannot get their classes or pay the higher fees drop out.

Nonetheless, Phelps opposes the guidelines, calling them a step backward. “It’s certainly not fair to the person who does not have a plan or a goal that he or she is pursuing,” he said.

At Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, students have been required to file matriculation plans since at least 1988, said Sue Brown, the administrative dean of admissions and records. But that does not eliminate the class crunch in high-demand subjects, even though overall enrollment is down 5% for this fall. “If we could offer 50 more sections of English 100, we could probably fill them,” Brown said.

A spokesman for Glendale Community College says it would take too much staff time and paperwork to make sure each student files a matriculation plan. Glendale gives priority to returning students and those who register early, although Gary Parker, the dean of admissions, concedes that his policy and the new state guidelines may cripple the chances of those like Gasparyan.