Student Entries Exceed UC Plan

The University of California admitted nearly 2,700 more students last year than called for under the state’s master plan for higher education, according to a preliminary analysis by the UC system.

The disclosure, coming as state lawmakers are proposing cutbacks in education and other spending to slash California’s budget deficit, is raising calls from the legislative analyst’s office and at least one regent for UC to consider scaling back freshman admissions.

California’s 43-year-old master plan for higher education, which provides guidelines for the state’s universities but is not legally binding, calls for UC to select its students from the top 12.5% of the state’s high school graduates.

But the preliminary analysis by UC, issued without fanfare to university leaders last month, found that the university system offered admission to 13.3% of California’s high school graduates, or 43,320 freshmen, at its eight undergraduate campuses. That amounts to 2,658 students more than the 12.5% level.

What’s more, the UC analysis found that the university system’s admissions requirements were low enough that thousands more high school graduates would have been accepted, had they applied.

The two-page UC assessment estimated that, under its regular admissions criteria, 15.2% of high school graduates were guaranteed admission to at least one of the system’s campuses.

The number of freshmen who enrolled at UC campuses in fall 2002 was 29,974, reflecting an increase of 23.6% over five years.

The number of admissions is an economic issue for the state because fees paid by students do not cover the cost of their education. The UC system is heavily subsidized.

Although state officials are working on an in-depth assessment of how closely the UC and California State University systems are tracking the master plan, disclosure of UC’s preliminary analysis already is spurring calls for tighter admissions practices. The timing of such potential cuts was not specified, but they probably would not affect high school students graduating this spring.

UC Board of Regents Chairman John J. Moores, who has contended that too many under-qualified students are accepted, said Friday that UC is “open to some criticism for not doing a better job of making sure that we’re in compliance with the master plan.”

“It would seem to me that the number of students we admit has got to come down,” Moores added.

He said the Schwarzenegger administration has proposed “a healthy whack at various outreach programs, which isn’t surprising. Now the real question is, what are they going to propose with enrollment?”

Steve D. Boilard, director of the higher education unit of the legislative analyst’s office, called the UC assessment “quite significant” in light of the state budget crisis and the admissions practices controversy.

He noted that higher education advocates and university officials have previously expressed concern that instructions from the Legislature to freeze enrollment next year at current levels might force UC to turn away students ranked in the top 12.5%, breaking a time-honored policy.

California State University officials, who under the master plan admit the top one-third of the state’s high school graduates, also have said they might not be able to live up to that standard under an enrollment freeze. They said they had not conducted an assessment similar to UC’s.

But Boilard said the UC analysis “certainly calls into question whether the master plan really is in jeopardy as much as people make it sound like it is.”

If UC is admitting more than the top 12.5% of high school graduates, he said, “Then it sounds to me like they’ve got some seats occupied by people who don’t fall within the master plan’s prescribed eligibility pool.”

Boilard said that could provide an opportunity for the Legislature to consider whether admissions policies and procedures adopted by the UC Board of Regents and the Cal State Board of Trustees are appropriate.

“As the fiscal environment gets very tight and we’re looking at the possibility of really having to limit enrollment, it might be appropriate to go back and look at what the practical effect of these policy decisions has been,” he said.

Nina Robinson, UC’s director of policy for student academic services, emphasized that the UC analysis was only preliminary, and that a more authoritative report would be issued before May 15 by the California Postsecondary Education Commission.

She said the last study by the commission, in 1996, found that UC was admitting fewer students than it was allowed under the master plan -- only the top 11.1% of the state’s high school graduates.

Robinson said the leaders of the UC system then decided to use that extra room for a new program to provide greater opportunity for the most promising students at poorly performing high schools. That program, launched in 2001, allows UC schools to admit the top 4% of seniors graduating from any individual school in the state that participates in the plan.

UC officials acknowledged that the 4% program might be enabling more students to qualify for UC than had been anticipated. They also said that increasingly successful outreach efforts and the improved performance of high school students also might have raised the number of students meeting UC’s admissions criteria.

Robinson said that, as a result, when the California Postsecondary Education Commission report is issued, “we’ll use [the data] to figure out whether we need to make adjustments in our eligibility requirements.”

UC spokeswoman Lavonne Luquis said university officials and regents are awaiting further word from lawmakers on state spending plans for next year before deciding whether to freeze enrollment at the current level.

Luquis said no immediate steps would be taken to revamp freshman admissions practices because “students who just turned in their applications have been preparing for years based on UC’s established requirements. It would be inconsistent with UC practice to change requirements when it’s too late for them to make any adjustments.”

Still, higher education experts said that if the universities are forced by the Legislature to freeze enrollment in the coming school year, administrators might need to take such steps as to defer admissions for a term or longer, or encourage some students to begin their studies at community colleges.

Moores agreed that it would be impractical for the UC system to immediately revamp its admissions practices but, in the longer term, he said, UC needs to address admissions standards that seem “impossibly low.”

The eligibility standard used by UC to determine whether students qualify for admission to the system is a formula that includes the student’s grade point average in UC-required high school courses, coupled with scores on college entrance exams.

It doesn’t take outstanding grades to gain admission to a UC campus. A California student who scores 1000 out of a possible 1600 on the basic SAT and 500 out of a possible 800 on each of the three required SAT II tests would qualify for UC with a grade point average of about 2.95, just under a B average.