Time for a Counseling Consolidation : CSUN Must Use Its Current Resources Better to Help Its Many Older, Working Students

At one time, the average student entering Cal State Northridge was fresh out of high school, someone who was going to live on campus and attend classes full time. That time has long since passed.

Now, CSUN officials believe that about 80% of their students work, that many of them work at least 40 hours a week, and the phrase “at least” was used because some are actually holding down two jobs. Moreover, CSUN is a full-fledged commuter school where the route to courses often involves heavily congested highways instead of a quick walk from the dorm to the classroom.

Small wonder that CSUN’s graduation rate, as reported last summer, comes in dead last among the seven National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Division I schools in the California state system. The special difficulties faced by older, working students are not the sole reason, but a big one.

Strong academic advising and counseling are crucial to this kind of student. Unfortunately, that is is an area in which CSUN has been particularly remiss. Now, CSUN President Blenda J. Wilson has proposed an overhaul of the oft-criticized system. It’s about time.

Specifically, Wilson suggested a reorganization that would centralize academic counseling into a one-office, one-stop operation that would serve all students. Currently, academic advisers are so thinly spread in several offices that school officials often aren’t exactly sure where their students should be sent. Records were so scattered that the advisers sometimes had to wait for as long as a week to receive the paperwork on their students.

CSUN can do better than this--with its current resources--on behalf of older, working students who require considerable help in managing their time, energies, and academic goals. Consolidating CSUN’s counseling services, as Wilson suggests, would be a good first step.