Dear California State University (CSU) Board of Trustees,

We, California State University students and alumni, are in strong opposition to the CSU’s effort to add an additional year of quantitative reasoning to the eligibility requirements for incoming first-year applicants. These changes will negatively impact students coming from under-resourced high schools that offer limited A-G courses, districts that are predominantly low-income, Black, Latinx, and Native American.

These changes to freshman eligibility are unnecessary because we are already college ready. We are excelling in college, having already completed a minimum of 3 years of Math in high school and taking rigorous quantitative coursework. Many of us have met the higher bar you continue to set through impaction in order to manage enrollment. You said so yourselves at the February CSU Board of Trustees meeting when you reported out on the success of the policy to eliminate remedial education – CSU students are college ready! We are working hard and exceeding expectations. Why then does the CSU continue to change the rules of the admissions game, making it harder and harder every year to enter into the “People’s University?”

Higher education gives us the power to change our lives and the lives of our communities through knowledge, self-exploration, and economic mobility. All California students deserve the opportunity to experience the life-changing potential of a higher education, but this change to eligibility requirements threatens that opportunity for thousands of Californians who are looking to you to save them a spot in college.

We ask that the CSU deliver on its promise of being an open-access institution and urge the CSU Board of Trustees vote against any proposal that would require an additional year of quantitative reasoning to determine freshman eligibility.

Sincerely,

California State University Students and Alumni

For additional questions, comments or concerns please contact sasha@collegecampaign.org