A Cal State University program will aim to better prepare California high school students for college, and minimize the financial burden of remedial education on CSUs.
The new program, called Early Start, will roll out in the summer of 2012.
The CSU plans to utilize its Early Assessment Program, which tests high school juniors on math and English proficiency, as a benchmark for offering deficient students the tools they need to bring their skills up to par. These tools will function under the new program.
“In Long Beach, the EAP is taken by nearly 98 percent of all high school juniors and has significantly impacted the rigor of their senior year education,” Cal State Long Beach President F. King Alexander said in a prepared statement.
“In fact, during the last three years alone, we have seen an increase in students directly entering postsecondary education from approximately 66 percent to 73 percent,” he continued. “This also means that more of our local students are ready for their collegiate experiences.”
According to the CSU, the purpose of EAP is to make sure college-bound high school graduates have the English and mathematical skills expected by the state university.
According to calstate.edu: “The EAP will allow students, their teachers, their parents and the CSU to know exactly how well prepared the 11th-graders are for university-level work. Furthermore, it will give high school students a chance to polish their skills before enrolling in college.”
Early Start will assist incoming college freshmen by refining their skills before they enter their first year of higher education.
CSU Media Relations Specialist Erik Fallis explained that Early Start will be applying lessons from other programs that are already out there. This assistance will also come with the option of online learning tools.
Half of the students admitted to CSU colleges need remediation or coursework to bring them up to college level, according to Miles Nevis, executive director of the California State Student Association.
This means the CSU system is spending extra money on a problem that, with attention like that given to the EAP and the Early Start Program, could be reduced in severity.
The CSU spends $30 million yearly on remedial classes, Fallis said.
Nevis is optimistic about the program’s effect on students.
“Our assumption is that this is going to help students … One possibility is that everybody wins,” Nevis said.
According to madeinthecsu.com, the CSU graduates 90,000 people into the workforce every year.
The website reported that the graduates make up 64 percent of nurses, 55 percent of teachers and 90 percent of criminal justice workers in the state of California.
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