Black Students Transferring From Community Colleges Are Funneled to the Least Prestigious Campuses of the University of California System

Last week, JBHE reported that black students who graduated from community colleges in California were significantly less likely than students from all other major ethnic groups to be accepted for admission to the University of California.

When we break down the data for each of the nine undergraduate campuses of the University of California system, we discover that those black students who are accepted are funneled to the least prestigious campuses. Only 28.5 percent of black transfer students who applied to Berkeley were admitted. At UCLA less than one of three black transfer students was admitted.

But at the new University of California at Merced campus, a whopping 82.2 percent of all black applicants were admitted. At the University of California at Riverside, which has seen a huge influx of black students since the enactment of Proposition 209, 71.5 percent of all black transfer applicants were admitted.

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