By Robert Moreno, Staff Writer
In September, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a landmark bill that will make San Diego State and the California State University system more transparent in its transfer admission policy.
Assembly Bill 2402, put forth by Assemblyman Marty Block, comes on the heels of SDSU making several controversial changes to its transfer admission policy, which resulted in a record-low 3,035 transfer students being accepted this semester.
Community college transfer directors across San Diego County began asking for transparency after changes to SDSU’s transfer admission policy were made without notifying or consulting with any of them, which prompted Block to step in.
“We have seen how changes in admissions policies made at the eleventh hour and behind closed doors can negatively impact students and their pursuit of higher education,” Block said in a press release.
“This legislation shines the light of transparency on local CSU campuses,” Block said. “And provides a reasonable, open and public process to ensure that qualified students who need to pursue higher education in their community are not unfairly disenfranchised by their local public university.”
The bill states any CSU campus that makes major admission changes must give a one-year notice by way of public meetings, putting an announcement in at least three local newspapers and publishing the changes on the university’s website.
Assistant Vice President of Academic Affairs Sandra Cook said such a bill is not needed.
“I don’t think it’s necessary because if you look at our CSU enrollment policy it already requires that you have a year notice for admission changes,” Cook said. “It does give you an out in the case of financial exigency, which is what happened last year when the budget was cut, so I think it’s extraneous and not necessary.”
Cook said the bill is a reaction to the changes SDSU made last year to its transfer admission policy because of budget cuts. She also said many people outside the university do not fully understand the financial strain the university had to overcome in the last year, which led to a low student enrollment, leading to what she called a “financially dire circumstance.” According to Cook, SDSU did notify high schools, the media and many different stakeholders that included congressmen and council members of any and all changes SDSU had made to the admission policy despite its financial exigency.
Richard Dittbenner, director of public information and government relations for the San Diego Community College District said AB 2402 is a step in the right direction for the CSU system to have transparency. He also said informing the public about admission changes is not the issue. The real issue, he said, is that the CSU system does not collaborate with community colleges in the decision-making process making changes to the transfer admission policies. He said this bill will help enforce collaboration.
AB 2402 applies to the entire CSU system, but Cook said the bill specifically targets SDSU. She said for whatever reason, people always seem to have it out for SDSU. Cook said SDSU has always been that the target of the misconception it turns away local students. She said this clearly is not the case because the principles of impaction embraces working with the local community and accepting local students.
Cook said a better alternative to AB 2402 would have been to restore funding for the whole CSU system.
She added this bill was made solely for political reasons.
“Marty Block is a politician. He is going to want to get re-elected,” Cook said.
“I think he wanted to show his constituents he was going be able to put it back the way it was. I know he cares about education but you can show it in other ways.”
