Concerns about CSU Local Service Areas and Priority Admission

Fall
2012
Resolution Number
15.02
 
Contact
Assigned to
President
Category
Intersegmental Issues
Status
Assigned

Whereas, The recommendations from the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) in their report Guaranteed Regional Access Needed for State Universities recognize the inequitable and discriminatory impact local area access priority to California State Universities (CSU) has on incoming students by acknowledging that “granting preference to local students over out-of-area students could be perceived as inequitable—particularly when the out-of-area student is better qualified, and given that CSU campuses differ in size, campus amenities, program offerings, student bodies, and other characteristics, there could be situations when particular students’ local service area campuses are not the best suited to these students’ needs”;

Whereas, The LAO report further suggests that CSUs still “believe that ensuring local access to all eligible students is more important than maintaining equal admissions criteria for all applicants to a given campus” despite evidence from the Chancellor’s Office for California Community College’s Datamart and CSU’s Institutional Research that this inequitable and discriminatory practice of local area access priority to CSU not only hurts many California community colleges (CCC), including Cerritos College, Cypress College, El Camino College (ECC) and ECC – Compton Center’s students ability to transfer, it also impacts these CCC’s ability to attract students, meet the expectations of the Student Success Taskforce recommendations, and give priority to students of non-protected classes over students of protected classes;

Whereas, Previous resolutions, 15.02 F09 (Re-Evaluate CSU Service Areas) and 15.03 S04 (CSU Service Areas), also describe the discriminatory practice of local area access priority to the CSU System and ask that this situation be examined and addressed, yet to date this practice continues and there is currently nothing being done to address this inequitable and discriminatory practice; and

Whereas, The CSU System and the CCC System both have new chancellors, providing for an optimal opportunity for this issue to be addressed and resolved;

Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges work with the California Community College Chancellor’s Office to initiate a discussion with the California State University Chancellor on ways to address concerns about local area access priority admission practices that may disadvantage California community college students.

MSC