California State University Wants to Raise Admissions Standards. Will It Shut Out Black and Latino Students?

Education Week reports:

The nation’s largest public university is pushing to raise its minimum standards for freshman admissions—a move that has galvanized opposition from advocates and some school districts that argue it puts more roadblocks in the path of students who already struggle to meet current requirements.

California State University, which enrolls nearly a half million students on 23 campuses, wants to add a year-long “quantitative reasoning” course to its current minimum standards for admissions.

University officials say the additional class, which can be a math course, a laboratory science course, or a math-heavy elective such as statistics, economics, coding, or personal finance, will cut dropout rates and increase the number of students who graduate on time.

But opponents say it could shut out otherwise qualified black, Latino, and low-income students. The university system’s 25-member board of trustees was scheduled to vote on the proposal during its meeting this week, but at the request of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, the vote was postponed to January.

The proposed requirement would be on top of the three years of high school math that are already part of the minimum standards for entry to California State University. The University of California system, which has 10 campuses and about 280,000 students, has the same minimum course requirements.

The struggles of third world California.