The Persisting Racial Gap for Students Meeting the Admissions Standards at California’s Public Universities

A recent report from the California Postsecondary Education Commission finds that African-American and Latino students continue to lag whites and Asians in qualifying for places at the University of California and the California State University systems. 

The report states that 24 percent of black high school graduates in California qualified for admission to the California State University system. For whites, 37.1 percent of all high school graduates qualified for admission to campuses of California State University.

For the University of California campuses, only 6.3 percent of black high school graduates in California met the minimum admission requirements. For whites, 14.6 percent of all high school graduates in California met the admission standards.

There was some good news in the report. The data showed that since 2003 the percentage of black high school graduates in California who met the admissions standards for the California State University system increased from 18.6 percent to 24 percent. 

There was only a slight improvement since 2003 in the percentage of black students who met the admissions requirements of the University of California system.

Copyright © 2008. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.