More on the need for a new Master Plan

UC President Clark Kerr hand the
Master Plan to Gov. Pat Brown

Yesterday, we posted about the need for a new Master Plan. In that post, we noted that community colleges were seen as competing with CSU by offering 4-year undergraduate degrees, to the dismay of CSU authorities. But, in a way, CSU is striking back through a program of automatically admitting high school students, some of whom might alternatively go to a local community college.

From CalMatters: What’s good for Riverside County is good for the whole state: After a pilot to automatically admit high school students into the California State University system in the Inland Empire county took off last fall, lawmakers this year passed a law to greenlight a similar program statewide next fall. Leaders at the California State University last year launched the pilot to attract more students to the university system and to steer some to campuses that have been struggling with enrollment declines.

The pilot worked like this: University officials and high schools in Riverside County pored over student course completion and grade data to identify every county high school senior who was eligible for admission to the 10 of 22 Cal State campuses chosen for the pilot. Then the students received a brochure in the mail last fall before the Nov. 30 submission deadline, plus digital correspondence, telling them they were provisionally admitted as long as they submitted an application to one or more Cal State campuses, even those not in the pilot, and maintained their high school grades.

Starting next fall, all students in California will be eligible for the automatic admissions program, which will expand the roster of participating Cal State campuses to 16. Cal State will release more information on the program’s implementation in February, its website says...

Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2025/12/cal-state-admission/.

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In theory, UC might also be affected by community colleges diverting students into their bachelors programs or by CSU automatically admitting high school students, although the competitive nature of admissions to UC acts as a shield. But apart from students, there is also the question of limited state dollars going into higher ed, and who gets them.