Guaranteed College Admissions for Students, Regardless of their Ability to Do the Work

February 2, 2000

Issue Backgrounder

By Charles King

Synopsis: Senate Bill 59 imposes admissions quotas which would force state colleges to accept students who
are not ready for the level of work required at the college.

What the Bill Does: The "Automatic Admission Act of 2000" mandates that Colorado State University, the
University of Northern Colorado, and the four undergraduate campuses of the University of Colorado
(Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs, and the Health Science Centers School of Nursing) admit as
undergraduate students all graduates of public high schools in Colorado whose grade point average ranks
them within the top twenty percent of grade pointaverages earned by persons in their graduating class.

Discussion: The effects of "automatic admissions" is to deny Colorado's institutions of higher education their
authority to establish their own criteria for admission of students to their programs.

The overall educational quality or academic standards of these institutions can only be negative, perhaps
even devastating. All of these institutions--with the possible exception of the Health Science Centers School
of Nursing--differ somewhat in their reliance on scores made on standardized tests (either the Scholastic
Aptitude Test or the American College Tests or both) but they all rely on them in admission of students. In
addition to the tests, they, of course, depend on other criteria, including high school grade point averages.

Scores on objective standardized tests, however, it needs to be said, are generally considered to be the best
indicators of an applicants ability to succeed as a university student.

To admit students solely on the basis of their grade-point-averages in high schools ignores the vast
differences in the quality provided by different public high schools in the State. The entiretop 20 percent from
one high school might not measure up even to the next-to-the bottom 20 percent or even the bottom fifth in
another school.

Instead of demanding that public high schools get with it, and provide an education that prepares students
for college-level work, SB 59, pats them on the back and tells them: "You're just great! Equal to the very
best in the State!. We legislators know better than our universityfaculty what education is all about,
especially higher education".

Sen. Bob Martinez obviously hopes to use education for some social engineering of his own. He wants, I
suspect, to further racial and ethnic preferences by borrowing directly from Florida Republican Governor Jeb
Bush's current drive to offer automatic admission to a state university to any high school graduate who ranks
in the top 20 percent of his public school, regardless of the educational quality of the school. (Governor Jeb,
of course, borrowed his idea from his brother, George W., who pushed for acceptance of the top ten percent
of any graduating class from any public high school in Texas.)

The result, however well-intentioned, is the further dumbing down of higher education.

For automatic admission to any of the above named participating institutions, the high school graduate must
apply must apply within two years after his or her graduation, and meet the institution's application filing
deadline. (Obviously a concession to the prevailing mediocrity of high school education, a mediocrity which
fails miserably in imbuing most students with a love of learning, of intellectual life, with an ambition to
accomplish something worthwhile in life.)
Furthermore, SB 59, orders that additional preparatory classes be provided for any students admitted
pursuant to the Bill who are determined by the institution " to need additional preparation in order to succeed
at the institution.". SB 59 would therefore put an additional--perhaps unbearable--strain upon the financial
and educational resources of the participating institutions. There are already many remedial programs at the
University ofColorado for students who need additional preparation to do college-level (post-high school,
advanced) work. SB 59 requires (does not just ask) our universities to do the work that taxpayers paid our
public high schools to do.

As a result of SB 59, many students who might be qualified for a community college, but not able to do work
at the level required by CU Boulder or a similar state university, will end up a university where they cannot
keep up with the work. To comply with SB 59, the state universities will have to turn themselves into
community colleges. Resources at the universities which could be used to educate the leaders of tomorrow
will instead be used to replicate community college programs on a university campus.

And thanks to the admissions quotas, some applicants who could really handle work at CU or CSU, but who
do not rank in the top 20% of their class (since they attend a rigorous high school) will be denied admission.
All of society will lose the benefit that these bright students could have gained through higher education at a
university.

Instead of putting students into universities for which they are not qualified--and thus harming both the
student and the university--Sen. Martinez and his legislative colleagues should sponsor a bill that would
demand--yes, demand--that all our state high schools prepare their graduates to succeed in the
undergraduate programs of their choice at the institutions named in SB 59.

Many high schools, perhaps most, are doing that now, and anyway you cut it, there will bethose who do it
better than others. But those schools which do it least well should be required to provide a genuine education
for their students, not pass their sloppy negligence off onto our state universities.

Prepared by Charles L. King, Senior Fellow, Independence Institute