Plan to increase diversity postponed until next year

By Robert Salonga
Daily Bruin Staff

Plans to institute a program designed to increase the number of
minority students in the University of California have been put on
hold until next year due to lack of funds.

The university has postponed the dual admissions plan, citing
the state legislature’s failure to provide the UC’s
request for $2.5 million before it went into recess last week.

“The legislative clock ran out on us at a time when the
state is facing some very bleak budget choices,” said Michael
Reese, assistant vice president of strategic communications for the
UC Office of the President.

Because the state legislature is in recess, the UC cannot pursue
funding for the program until it reconvenes in January.

According to the dual admissions plan, students in the top 4 to
12.5 percent of their high school class would be guaranteed UC
admission, provided they complete two years at a community college.
It would have taken effect for the class of fall 2003 and transfer
students in 2005.

UC President Richard Atkinson had assured the regents at their
July meeting, when they approved the plan, that he would not go
forward with the program unless funding was secured.

Reese added that most of the requested $2.5 million would go
toward hiring counselors for the program. This would ensure that
students under the plan would stay on track for transfer to a UC,
he said.

Under the program, the university would provide one counselor
for every three eligible community college campuses. Also planned
was a web-based tracking system that would allow students to
monitor their progress themselves.

“The concern was that the program would be pointless to
implement without the counselors,” said student regent Tracy
Davis.

Some argue that the UC can begin the dual admissions plan
without state help.

“Whoever believes that the university cannot start this
program without state funding is being led astray,” said Max
Espinoza, chief consultant for higher education on the Assembly
Budget Committee.

The university’s dependence on state funds for the program
is unnecessary because, he said, there is enough money within
existing resources.

“To delay implementation based on the failure to secure
$2.5 million is really unwise,” said Espinoza, who is also
the assistant to Assembly Budget Chair Tony Cardenas, D-Sylmar, and
a former student regent.

Individual dual admissions pilot programs are being planned at
UC campuses at L.A., Davis, Irvine and Santa Cruz.

“We will certainly go back in January and start the
process over again,” Reese said.

Espinoza said he could not understand all the attention being
paid toward the lack of state funds for the program.

“The dual admissions program is one of several responses
by the UC to the diversity crisis in the state,” he said.
“In the grand scheme of things, $2.5 million is not a lot to
come up with for the diversity crisis that they created.”

Even with the postponement, Davis said she remains optimistic
about the plan.

“It can still be implemented, because it’s not just
about dual admissions,” she said. “It’s about
improving the connections between the UC and community colleges and
giving students a better opportunity to transfer.”