Despite some California State Universities being forced to forgo preference to local students, Cal State Long Beach officials say they will follow through with the Long Beach College Promise.
The Long Beach College Promise has Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD), Long Beach City College and CSULB working together to help ease transition into the CSU system.
Due to impaction, San Diego State University became the first CSU to reverse its policy to favor local students. SDSU turned away local students who met minimum admissions requirements this school year, instead only taking the most qualified applicants from across California, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Last fall, nearly 4,800 San Diego area high school seniors applied and qualified for enrollment at San Diego State. More than a third, 1,740, were turned away, reported the San Francisco Chronicle.
CSULB, on the other hand, has been admitting more than 80 percent of local applicants since 2007.
“Cal State Long Beach is committed to serving its local students, and, as you can see, the numbers support that commitment,” Vice Provost for CSULB David Dowell said.
The program guarantees students from the LBUSD admittance into CSULB, if they meet the minimum requirements. If the student decides to go to LBCC first, his or her first semester of tuition as of 2011 is free, according to csulb.edu.
CSULB adopted the policy of favoring local students after the university became impacted in 2002, Dowell said. Impaction refers to a campus having more qualified applicants than it has room for, according to Erik Fallis, media relations expert for the CSU.
The entire CSU system was declared impacted during the 2008-2009 academic year after a $625 million budget cut from California.
CSULB alumnus David Binggeli said he has benefited firsthand from this promise. Binggeli graduated from Lakewood High and went on to study at LBCC right after.
He said he then transferred to CSULB in 2004 and graduated with a degree in sports management in 2008. He said he hopes the program continues.
“I think giving students that live in the local community a chance to go to CSULB is huge,” Binggeli said. “It gives students a hope knowing that they can go to a great university. Students can also grow not only [at] CSULB but also [in] their community that they have been a part of their whole lives.”
Out of the 23 CSU campuses, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is the only one that has shown no preference to local students for decades. However, it’s at the discretion of each CSU to decide to favor local students or not.
The level of impaction for each school depends on the semester and state funding. Federal and state funding of $305 million during the 2010-2011 budget cycle allowed many CSUs, like CSULB, to open admissions for spring 2011. During the 2011-2012 year, it is anticipated that Gov. Jerry Brown will cut $500 million from the CSU system.
“Impaction is really a function of budget and state support,” Fallis said. “If the state continues to withdraw support, then that’s going to have an impact on if local campuses can serve local students.”
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