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Improve community college transfer with dual admissions, clearer pathways, say college leaders

Fresno City College campus.

Credit: Ashleigh Panoo/EdSource

Creating a more streamlined transfer pathway and expanding initiatives such as dual enrollment and dual admissions could help increase the number of California students who successfully transfer from community college to a university, officials from the state’s public higher education segments said Tuesday.

“The key is that across all three of our systems, that we have a more unified process for designing pathways and programs together … so that these pathways naturally flow from the community college system into the CSU, into the UC,” Aisha Lowe, an executive vice chancellor for California’s community college system, said during a panel discussion hosted by the Public Policy Institute of California.

The panel, which also included representatives from the University of California and California State University systems, came on the heels of a PPIC report that found that few students who wish to transfer from a community college to a UC or Cal State campus are successful in doing so.

The report also found that there are big racial and regional disparities in transfer students. For example, Black and Latino students as well as students from the San Joaquin Valley and Inland Empire are less likely than their peers to transfer successfully.

But the state is taking steps that officials expect will improve the transfer process, which critics say is overly complex. Students considering transferring to a UC or Cal State often have to contend with different course requirements, depending on the campus, even in the same major.

Currently, top lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom are in agreement on the framework of a new pilot transfer program between the community colleges and UC, Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, told EdSource on Monday. Under Assembly Bill 1291, transfer students earning an associate degree for transfer would get priority admission, first to UCLA in select majors and later to additional campuses. Proponents say that solution will help streamline the transfer process because students earning an associate degree for transfer can already get a guaranteed spot in the Cal State system.

UC has not yet formally endorsed the new bill, but McCarty said UC was involved in the negotiations that resulted in the legislation.

Yvette Gullatt, UC’s vice president for graduate and undergraduate affairs, said during Tuesday’s panel that UC sees the associate degree for transfer “as an opportunity to enhance transfer, particularly” at community colleges where few students successfully transfer.

“There’s always opportunity to explore more ways that ADTs can benefit students at UC, and you’ll hear more from us soon about some ways we plan to do that,” she added.

California is also in the process of expanding both dual enrollment, in which high school students take college courses, and dual admission programs, which guarantee high school graduates a future spot at a UC or Cal State after they first attend a community college.

The new statewide chancellor for the community college system, Sonya Christian, has said she wants every ninth grader to enroll in a college course through dual enrollment.

Lowe said Christian’s plan could help improve the likelihood that students eventually attend a community college and transfer to a UC or Cal State campus by “getting them on that pathway” earlier in their academic career.

“Helping them to get some of their transfer requirements done while they’re still in high school, exposing them to financial aid and the FAFSA and that process while they’re still in high school,” she added. “So we’re working on rolling out a comprehensive program around dual enrollment because we think that that’s going to continue to be an important lever.”

At the same time, new pilot programs in dual admission at both UC and Cal State are going into effect this fall. The programs are open to students who weren’t admitted to the system where they are applying for dual admission. Both segments will guarantee eligible students a spot in their chosen major and at their chosen campus, so long as they meet all their requirements. Not all majors are available and, in the case of UC, not all campuses are participating. More information about the programs can be found here for UC and here for Cal State.

Laura Massa, interim associate vice chancellor at Cal State, said during Tuesday’s panel that about 2,500 prospective students already have created an account on the portal for that system’s dual admissions program.

Dual admission has the potential to be a “very promising practice,” said Marisol Cuellar Mejia, one of the authors of the PPIC report and moderator of Tuesday’s panel, in an interview.

“It makes things more streamlined because from the beginning you know exactly where you are going, and then you avoid any duplication of courses or anything like that,” she said. “We are curious to see what it’s going to look like with these pilots.”

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17/07/2025
Bill to provide descendants of slavery preference in college admissions moves forward
UCLA campus in Westwood on Nov. 18, 2023.

Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource
Top Takeaways

Assembly Bill 7, which would allow colleges and universities to give preference to students who are descendants of slavery, cleared the Senate Education Committee.

Affirmative action is not permitted at the state or federal level, but proponents say being a descendant of a slave isn’t a proxy for race.

Experts doubt the bill will become law and anticipate legal challenges.
A bill that would give California colleges and universities an option to provide preference in admissions to descendants of slavery has cleared the state’s Senate Education Committee with a 5-2 vote after being passed in the Assembly with overwhelming support. But as the bill moves to the Judiciary Committee, even its proponents say they are pessimistic that it will become law at a time of increasing scrutiny over measures suggesting racial preferences.

Assembly Bill 7, authored by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, is the first statewide measure of its kind to address the harms of slavery, said UCLA education professor Tyrone Howard, and it has been backed by nearly two dozen organizations, including the California Federation of Teachers and the University of California Student Association.

“Disparities in admissions persist and reflect deeply rooted structural inequalities, including the afterlives of slavery. In addition, California had a long history of legacy admissions, up until last year, that favored students who came from wealthy and well-connected family situations,” Bryan said at Wednesday’s hearing. “[AB 7] empowers universities with the option, not a mandate, to acknowledge and respond to this historical context when evaluating applicants.”

Lance Christensen, the vice president of Government Affairs & Education Policy at the California Policy Center, said he doesn’t see the need for such a measure in California — and felt the bill “looks to be an underhanded approach at racial preferences.”

“I think we’re getting close to the place where we should stop race-baiting a lot of our bills. If California truly is a terrible or bad actor in the issue of slavery, we should do everything we can to fix and address those issues,” Christensen said. “And there are places where we were really not good to a lot of Black people, Asians, Native Americans and other disparate people. This is not one of those places where I think that we should focus our time and attention.”

Organizations such as the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation also previously expressed concerns about AB 7 leading “to de facto racial preferences without facilitating any meaningful changes to ameliorate structural problems at the K-12 level, including declines in academic performance and the persistent achievement gaps among different demographic groups.”

Neither state nor federal law allows a student’s race to be a factor in admissions, and affirmative action continues to be barred in California under Proposition 209, which 57.2% of voters opted to keep in place in 2020.

But supporters of the bill said at Wednesday’s hearing that descendants are not a “proxy for race” and “could look like anybody in this room,” noting that Indigenous people also have histories of being enslaved. Meanwhile, not all Black Americans have ancestors who were slaves.

The bill did not receive any formal opposition at Wednesday’s hearing.

“We have seen reparations for different communities, and we’ve seen the benefits,” said Senate Education Committee Chair Sasha Renée Pérez, noting reparations measures following Japanese internment during World War II. “Unfortunately, we have not seen the same type of investments placed towards those that are descendants of slavery and Black Americans across the country.”

Proving lineage

AB 7 is unique because it specifically pertains to students who are descendants of slavery, Howard said. But, even if the bill passes, qualifying for any preference in admissions could be difficult, and Christensen added that ancestral records are often “incomplete or scattered at best,” which could lead to logistical issues.

“Admissions reviewers have a lot to already digest when they’re going through the process of admissions as it is — when you think about transcripts and grades and coursework and extracurricular activities,” Howard said. “And so now, to add to that, you’ve got to prove lineage. That might prove to be a bit challenging.”

Any preference in admissions would apply to students who can show a clear lineage to someone who was subjected to American chattel slavery before 1900, according to the bill analysis.

In order to receive preference, students will also have to meet at least one other criteria, which includes having an ancestor who was emancipated, acquiring freedom through abolition measures, being a fugitive from bondage, considered contraband or “rendered military or civic service while subject to legal restrictions based on ancestry historically associated with slavery.”

When it comes to affirmative action, there “is this misnomer that somehow a large number of unqualified and unprepared … Black students are getting these opportunities solely because of the fact of their race or ethnicity,” Howard added. “This would be one variable that would attempt to at least give some consideration.”

Potential challenges

Despite its support at Wednesday’s committee hearing, many experts are wary that the bill will not become law in the first place.

“As progressive as we are, I don’t know that we have the appetite as a state to go so far as to say, ‘Yes, we acknowledge that there are descendants in this state who are harmed by the legacy of slavery — and therefore we’re going to try to take redress by turning when it comes to college admissions,’” Howard said.

Howard pointed out that even if AB 7 is successful, the language in the bill requires that colleges and universities ensure any changes in the admissions process are in compliance with federal laws.

Given the current political climate, “Federal guidelines are not going to allow something that gives anything that resembles an advantage or an opportunity to one group of others to fly,” Howard said. “I just think that all the attacks we’ve seen on DEI, anything that’s seen in that way, I think would be dead on arrival.”

Shaun Harper, a USC professor of education, public policy and business, said he supports the measure and other efforts to secure reparations.

But, if passed, he anticipates it would face serious legal challenges, including from those who believe it violates Prop. 209 or contradicts the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action.

“At best … it does some acknowledgment of the wrongs that have been done to enslaved Africans here in the United States,” Harper said. “Ultimately, if it doesn’t happen, or it stalls, once again, Black folks have been set up to expect some amends for the wrongdoing, and we’re going to be left once again disappointed.”
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10/07/2025
California Legislature asked again to ban legacy admissions in all of higher education

Assemblymember Phil Ting introduced a bill Wednesday to ban legacy admissions in California’s private colleges and universities.

A California assemblymember wants the state to join others in forcing private universities to stop legacy admissions.

The bill would prohibit the state’s private colleges and universities from receiving state funding through the Cal Grant program if they give preferential treatment to applicants with donor or alumni connections.

The bill makes California one of a handful of states considering curbing legacy admissions at both public and private colleges. Nationally, Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., have also introduced legislation to ban public and private colleges from considering legacy connections in admissions decisions.

“Unfortunately, we saw last year that the Supreme Court disallowed the consideration of race in college admissions, but what they didn’t do was disallow the knowledge of income or class in college admissions,” said Assemblymember Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, who authored the bill, Assembly Bill 1780. “For the “1% of Americans, they have complete access, they have a back door, they have a side door, they have an express lane into our most elite institutions.”

Ting cited a study by Harvard University economists that found that children from families earning more than $611,000 a year are more than twice as likely to receive admission to a university when compared with low- and middle-income families with comparable standardized test scores.

Although the vast majority of private institutions in California say they don’t use donor or alumni connections to admit students, and none of the public institutions use legacy status for admission, six universities do, based on their admissions reports to the Legislature.

Stanford, the University of Southern California and Santa Clara University, in particular, all admitted more than 13% of their students based on connections to alumni and donors, based on their fall 2022 enrollment.

“This is a fairly limited practice within our sector,” said Kristen Soares, president of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities. “We have indicated to Assemblymember Ting’s office and others that we welcome the conversation and look forward to reviewing the details of the proposal once it is in print.”

Officials from Stanford and USC did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.

Sophie Callott, a senior at Stanford University, said her parents met as law students at the university, and so she’s a legacy student. Despite that, she’s in favor of ending the practice.

“I do not want my achievements to be overshadowed or questioned by the possibility that I only got into Stanford because my parents went there,” she said, during a news conference hosted by Ting on Wednesday about the bill. “People who go to schools like Stanford have an unparalleled advantage in the job market that allows them to disproportionately occupy high-paying leadership positions. If their children are further given a leg up in the admissions process, then this cycle of wealth and privileges continues.”

What is not known about legacy admissions?

The move to ban legacy admissions has taken off following the conservative-majority decision by the Supreme Court to effectively end race-conscious admission programs at colleges and universities. California law has banned the use of affirmative action in public institutions since 1996, and a recent effort to reverse that decision failed in 2020. The state’s private institutions did not have to follow California’s affirmative action ban, but in order to accept federal dollars, they did have to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision.

Alyssa Murray, a Stanford student and co-president of the Stanford Black Student Union, said during the news conference that legacy admissions is a form of racial preference and economic discrimination, and ending it would be one step toward creating true equity in higher education.

“For nearly a century, California private schools have predominantly admitted white students, creating an insurmountable racial imbalance,” she said. “That means legacy admissions will always favor white and wealthy applicants at the expense of low-income students of color who often do not have alumni relations.”

Ting attempted a similar bill in 2019 following Operation Varsity Blues, the national college admissions scandal that exposed a scheme through which the children of rich parents were able to get into top-tier schools using fake athletic credentials and bogus entrance exam scores. That bill ultimately failed and was opposed by the state’s private colleges because the system of legacy admissions was unrelated to the scandal and there were concerns that disallowing private schools that use legacy admissions from participating in the Cal Grant program would only hurt low-income students also attending those institutions.

Ting said the 2019 bill failed because Varsity Blues was too anecdotal and there wasn’t enough hard data, but now the numbers show where legacy admissions are prevalent. That data is now available because of a separate 2019 bill, AB 697, that Ting authored in the aftermath of the scandal, forcing private universities to send admissions and enrollment reports to the Legislature.

A June report by the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities, which did not include data from Stanford or USC, found that only five of 70 private institutions allowed legacy admissions — Santa Clara, Pepperdine, Vanguard, Claremont McKenna and Harvey Mudd.

“It is a fact that legacy admissions perpetuates a cycle of privilege that fortifies inequity in higher education,” said Murray, co-president of the Stanford Black Student Union. “Legacy admissions perpetuates the racism of decades past when colleges and universities were closed to Latinx, Black, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native people.”

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10/06/2025
How to give everyone a fair shot in college admissions

Credit: Courtesy of CollegeSpring

Much of the focus on systemic inequality in America — in education or other sectors — has rightly been through retrospective or historical accounts about present-day conditions, or through cries for social reform based on egregious incidents and related frustrations. It’s a rare occasion, however, when we have the opportunity to reflect upon a slow but potentially pernicious systemic change that’s taking place in real time, right before our eyes.

Within higher education, there’s a new inequitable system in the making — or worse, a re-entrenchment of an old one — that stands to sharply divide and negatively affect society, communities and the future workforce.

As we end one admissions cycle and reflect on the testing policy changes in college admissions in 2024 alone, Ivy League schools like Cornell, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, MIT, other highly selective universities like CalTech and UT-Austin, and now Stanford, reversed test-optional policies to begin requiring the SAT and ACT again. The flood of announcements made it easy to dismiss or tire of them, since most of these colleges are already viewed as out of reach for the majority of students, calculated on one basic fact: grades.

All students know — or at least used to — that at minimum, you need stellar grades and a good test score to get in. Today, however, it seems that will only be true of some exceptional schools. With test optional-schools, it’s less clear-cut whether test scores matter and/or how good your grades and scores need to be.

Wealthier, more privileged students combat the complexity by continuing to prepare for and take the SAT or ACT — no matter the school — while lower-income students with less access to quality counseling and information are told the tests are less important in college admissions overall. This effectively takes any of the above-mentioned schools off the table for them, and also lowers their chances even at the other test-optional schools. More and more, students will pursue only the colleges they think they’ve been prepared for — while taking themselves out of the running for schools that could admit them.

I fear we are on the precipice of recreating systemic divisions that are reminiscent of those of the not-so-distant past — the mid-20th century — when people went to schools with others who were assigned to the same station in life. The Harvards of the country selected students from local or known elite circles. There were different standards for women, who went to colleges that prepared them for support roles, not leadership. Black students predominantly went to Black colleges — mostly for Black men. People of certain classes, genders, religions, and races were grouped together —all according to their expected roles and objectives in life.

So what can we do now to stem this growing inequity?

Some might say the antidote would be that all colleges should have the same rules — either every college requires the test or they don’t. To be clear, I believe that would be the most fair thing to do. Test required or test blind, and nothing in between.

I also believe that would be impossible, impractical and unrealistic to enforce.

In the United States, we have a problem with standardization — and not just the testing kind. On the one hand, this nation was founded on the principle of equality, on sameness for all. That, however, stands in fierce tension with our desire for individualism and uniqueness. So, while I think the same rules and opportunities would undoubtedly lead to a fairer system and better outcomes for all people, I’ve realized that uniformity is not a rallying cry people will get behind.

What we must get behind, then, is for every college to be as transparent as possible about how test scores are used. I commend schools like Dartmouth, which did the research to be able to say: To attend this school, you must submit a score, and if you are from an underrepresented background, we will factor your score in this way.

Test-optional schools should develop a clear-cut rubric to give students a sense of how much weight they give to scores, or what minimum score they will need if their GPA does not meet a certain threshold. Even if this increased transparency from schools was made available to students, what all students need — and in particular students from low-income underrepresented backgrounds — is the same message that their more privileged peers are getting: “Take the test. It will likely help you. You might not need it for some schools, but at least you will have more options if you are prepared.”

For students who do want to take the SAT or ACT and receive a score, testing companies and educators must ensure that they give them opportunities to do so. It’s troubling to read about lack of testing sites or canceled administrations, like the one that affected 1,400 students in Oakland on June 1.

Those of us who educate and guide students should encourage and help them to set and reach high standards, not prepare them for the bare minimum. The way we do that is by ensuring all students are positioned at the starting line with the same information, not different interpretations of the admissions landscape.

If we want as many Americans to have the highest quality education possible, this system-in-the-remaking is not sustainable. We now have a moment to pause and reflect upon the direction we’re headed and ask how we can use everything we know and see today to make our schools more inclusive, ensuring that they are engines of mobility for all students from all backgrounds, not just a select few.

•••

Yoon Choi is CEO of CollegeSpring, a national nonprofit that trains schools and teachers to provide SAT prep to students from low-income backgrounds.

The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.

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25/05/2025