By Tim Hoover
The Denver Post

A bill that would allow illegal immigrants to get in-state tuition might make it out of a Senate committee early today because of one GOP lawmaker’s absence — a situation Republicans called a little too convenient.

Senate Bill 170, sponsored by Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, had appeared destined for failure on a 5-5 vote in the Senate Appropriations Committee, which was to meet Friday morning.

Though Democrats hold a 6-4 majority on the committee, Sen. Moe Keller, D-Wheat Ridge, had said she would not support the bill, meaning it was likely to die on a tie vote.

But Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, the chairman of the panel, on Tuesday called a committee meeting for 7:30 this morning.

The extra meeting today means a vote on Romer’s bill could take place without Sen. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, who last week said he had family business that would require his absence from the Senate until Thursday. With Harvey gone, the bill could pass on a 5-4 vote.

The bill would allow students who have attended a Colorado high school for at least three years and graduated to get the in-state tuition rate at public colleges and universities. After a contentious debate last month, the Senate referred the legislation to the Appropriations Committee after Republicans raised concerns about its potential costs.

Supporters have said the bill has no impact on state revenue, but Keller’s opposition was seen as the death knell for the measure.

Tapia, a supporter of Romer’s bill, said he scheduled the meeting today because the committee, which did not meet last week, faced a large bottleneck of bills. He said the committee is likely to meet Thursday as well.

“Bills have backed up an awful lot,” Tapia said. “I tried to put as many bills as possible on the (committee’s agenda).”

Republicans, though, said the timing of today’s meeting was fishy in light of Harvey’s absence.

“The bill is coming up before other bills that have been on the appropriations (schedule) for a while,” said Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, also a member of the panel. “It does strike me as very suspicious.”

Harvey, reached by phone, said he had gone to Florida to help his wife prepare to put her father, who has Alzheimer’s disease, in a facility in Colorado.

“They (Democrats) are taking advantage of my personal family issues to reschedule the committee hearing and push the bill through,” he said.

Kopp said he would offer a motion in today’s meeting to postpone consideration of the bill until Harvey returned to Denver.

Would Tapia agree to that?

“Are they going to want to delay every other bill that they think they can stop?” he asked in response. “I don’t know what I would do. I would have to think about that.”

He said he recognized Republicans might be suspicious of his motives.

“I can imagine that the Republicans may think this is kind of a stealth thing,” Tapia said. “My job isn’t to send bills (to the committee schedule) with the intention of killing them.”

Popularity: 80% [?]

Maricruz Salinas

Ruth Lopez, sophomore radio-TV-film major, is a first-generation college student. Her parents never made it past high school.

That is the case for the majority of the growing Hispanic population enrolled in universities, said Ray Brown, dean of admissions.

In a state where Hispanics make up 36 percent of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the university’s Hispanic enrollment is less than 10 percent. However, over the last 11 years, the number of incoming Hispanic freshmen students has increased 67 percent, going from 92 Hispanic freshmen in 1998 to 154 in last year’s freshman class, Brown said. Those numbers need to keep improving, he said.

“If we don’t enroll more and more Hispanic students, we’re going to look so different,” he said. “I don’t pretend to think we need to be absolutely reflective of every demographic that this state has - not today, but it might be nice to work toward that sometime.”

The university has several programs aimed at increasing the number of Hispanics on campus, part of an effort to give more students the opportunity Lopez said she had.

“My parents never went to college and came to America for a better future,” Lopez said. “My mother wanted me to go to college and get a better job rather than resort to some job that anyone can do.”

One of the programs the university recently debuted is the Hispanic Senior Experience. The event, which began earlier this month, brought together current and prospective Hispanic students and introduced prospective students to advisers.

Aaron Marez, an admissions counselor, said the addition of more Hispanic students will strengthen the university’s mission of educating ethical citizens in a community that reflects different demographics.

Brown said the university has recruitment programs aimed at minority students on the local, statewide and nationwide level.

Community Scholars, a program for students in inner-city high schools within the Dallas-Fort Worth area who would otherwise be unable to pay for college is one such program, Brown said.

Victoria Herrera, regional director of admissions in Houston, said the university also hosts Camp College, a statewide program that brings minority high school students to campus and exposes them to the college experience.

Mike Marshall, assistant director of admissions,
said the total number of Hispanics enrolled in the university in 2003 was 432. The Hispanic undergraduate population has experienced a dramatic increase since then, Marshall said. The student population has grown to 625 undergraduates as of last year, he said.

Marshall said the university works closely with the National Hispanic Institute in the Collegiate World Series program for high school juniors and educates them about the college world.

Herrera said enrolling more minority students is a building process, but that exposure is what has really improved the direction of the university.

“We have lots of work to do, but the momentum is there and I feel like it’s going to continue,” Herrera said. “We’ve made great strides so far.”

Popularity: 32% [?]

By Colleen Slevin Associated Press

DENVER — Latino groups supporting a proposal to allow illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition took their campaign to the state Capitol on Monday, lobbying lawmakers on both sides of the issue.

About 150 people rallied on the West steps before heading inside the Capitol to find their assigned lawmakers and talk to them about the bill, which is awaiting a vote in the Senate.

Among them was Yamili, an 18-year-old high school student from Denver who said she doesn’t qualify for in-state tuition because she came to the United States illegally with her parents about 10 years ago from Mexico. Yamili, who didn’t give her last name because of her immigration status, said she has been accepted to private Regis University with a $12,000 scholarship but is applying for other scholarships to help her pay the tuition, which will be about $30,000 next year.

She led about a dozen people to meet with Rep. Jerry Frangas, D-Denver, outside the House chamber, where members were locked in a long debate over the Electoral College. They talked to Frangas, who supports the bill, in both English and Spanish.

Sen. Keith King, R-Colorado Springs, was also lobbied by bill supporters and said he still opposes it.

King said it gives false hope to illegal immigrants because they still will have trouble finding jobs once graduating from college because they’re not citizens.

Backers of the bill, which is sponsored by Sen. Chris Romer and Rep. Joe Miklosi, have been urging members to call lawmakers to show their support and have also visited churches asking members to send letters of support. But lawmakers say supporters have been outnumbered by opponents, who have bombarded them with e-mails and calls.

Popularity: 34% [?]

Jay Root, Associated Press

A surgeon is to become the nation’s first Latino to preside over a major university system when Dr. Francisco Cigarroa takes the helm at the University of Texas System, which faces financial woes and complaints about diversity.

Cigarroa, a 51-year-old pediatric transplant surgeon from Laredo, looks at his new job as the system’s chancellor starting today as an opportunity to exceed expectations.

“Challenges really don’t dissuade me from pursuing important opportunities,” Cigarroa said. “If you’re an optimist, you see opportunities, and that’s the way I’ve been brought up.”

Cigarroa, as the chief executive officer of the UT System, will help administer an $11.5 billion operating budget and preside over 15 campuses with more than 194,000 students.

He faces complaints about soaring tuition costs, a growing battle over admissions policies and a hurricane-ravaged medical school and health center in Galveston.

To address those issues, the outgoing president of the UT Health Sciences Center in San Antonio will have to enter an arena far dicier than medicine: politics. The state Legislature granted school officials the power to raise tuition rates in 2003, but has been pressuring the school system to stop increases.

Cigarroa is passionate about the prospect of changing admissions policies, which currently dictate automatic entry to state universities for students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school class. UT wants the policy relaxed so it can have more say about who gets in the door.

“I think we can find an appropriate balance where universities not only look at the top 10 percent, but they also look at those wonderfully competitive students who may have not made the top 10 percent but have done something incredibly special,” Cigarroa said.

Cigarroa also must deal with the future of University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, which suffered $1 billion in damage from Hurricane Ike.

One of nine children born to a doctor and a disciplinarian mother in Laredo, Cigarroa recalls a childhood filled with trips to his grandparents across the border in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. He frequently visits his mother-in-law there.

The Yale graduate received his medical degree, with highest honors, from UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. His surgical prowess has earned him the nickname “Manos de Oro,” or “Golden Hands.”

Popularity: 17% [?]

Latino leaders are decrying the Denver Public School Board’s choice for superintendent finalist, saying Hispanics weren’t considered despite the fact Latino students make up 60 percent of those enrolled in the school district.

The newly formed group calling itself the Colorado Latino Forum also says the process by which 44-year-old Tom Boasberg was selected was secretive. The school board says Boasberg is the sole finalist to replace superintendent Michael Bennet after Gov. Bill Ritter picked him last week to fill the U.S. Senate seat left open by Ken Salazar.

More than 20 group members signed a letter Friday to school board president Theresa Pena requesting to talk about having a transparent and open process for Boasberg’s selection and future appointments.

“It is a shame that you would announce such an important appointment without even going to the community that has the most to lose or gain,” they say in the letter.

Boasberg, who has been the district’s chief operating officer since May 2007, told The Denver Post editorial board Friday he’s a good choice because he’s been part of recent reforms at the district and that it’s not “a time to bring someone else new in.”

“I’ve played a large role in the past two years of helping to set that direction. What we need to do is make sure we’re continuing that direction and accelerating.”

But the group said the selection is just the latest instance where Latinos have been left out.

“We are disappointed that our voices continue to be ignored by the many who we help to get elected,” said former Denver Councilwoman Ramona Martinez.

Some of the perceived slights to the Latino community include the appointments of former state Rep. Bernie Buescher to Secretary of State and Bennet to the U.S. Senate. Former Denver Councilwoman Rosemary Rodriguez was a candidate for Secretary of State, and former state Sen. Polly Baca wrote a letter to Ritter showing her interest in the Salazar seat, noting that Colorado could be the first state to send a Latina woman to the U.S. Senate if she was chosen.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Access to college is key for a society to move forward. It is an investment in our youth, and in our state, which provides lower cost tuition to students who attend for several years—and then graduate from—California’s high schools.

This is the basis, in broad strokes, of state law AB540, which allows undocumented students to pay in-state tuition if they agree to normalize their immigration status as soon as they are able, and to meet the attendance and graduation requirements mentioned above.

This educational opportunity is not only available to undocumented immigrants. In fact, the majority of its beneficiaries are American students who complete high school in California, then establish residency in another state and later return to go to college.

But you wouldn’t think so. A lawsuit has been filed claiming that the state law violates federal statute by granting undocumented students benefits not enjoyed by graduates of other states who want to study in California since it requires these students to pay more than the in-state tuition rate.

We believe this legal action is not guided by educational equanimity but rather aimed at punishing undocumented students. The suit is trying to take advantage of the vacuum that exists because of the absence of federal immigration reform in order to impose undue restrictions.

The intent is to punish young people who are not responsible for their immigration status, who meet the requirements demanded of all students to receive in-state tuition, and whose parents fund state education with their taxes. It is unfortunate that a State Court of Appeal last September raised questions about the validity of AB540. The good news is that a few days ago the State Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

We hope the state Supreme Court upholds the law, recognizing that it does not grant privileges to the undocumented, but rather it regulates access to college for graduates of California high schools, regardless of their immigration status. This legislation is fair for young people whose hard work has earned them the right to continue their studies, and is beneficial for California by contributing to an educated workforce.

Popularity: 16% [?]

By Matt Krupnick, Contra Costa Times

With budget cuts straining California’s public colleges and universities, some are worried about the effects on Latinos, who are particularly difficult to recruit to higher education in the best of times.

The California State University system, where more than one-quarter of students are Latino, plans to cut enrollment by 10,000 next year. Although the university still plans to guarantee entry to the vast majority of qualified California residents, the plan could discourage students from applying.

Several organizations have worked for years to increase college-attendance rates among the state’s 14.3 million Latinos, and some are concerned the new challenges could roll back gains. More than 43 percent of California’s 18- to 24-year-old population is Latino, compared with 27 percent of the state’s public college and university enrollment.

Although a recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California showed Latinos are far more likely than other ethnicities to value higher education, some parents are recent immigrants who did not attend college and do not understand the challenges their children face.

Budget problems serve to complicate that obstacle, said Deborah Santiago, a co-founder and vice president of Excelencia in Education, which researches Latino education issues. The resulting obstacles will contradict the state’s longtime mission to provide widespread college access, Santiago said.

“Even if we got these first-generation students better educated (about college), I think California would be challenged to have the capacity to serve them,” she said. “Talk about a misalignment of messages.”

But support groups are continuing to convince Latinos that a college education is possible. At the Parent Institute for Quality Education, students whose parents complete courses about the college-going process are given priority in Cal State admissions.

And Excelencia in Education promotes programs that address the needs of the Latino community, such as in-depth counseling and bilingual nursing courses.

“The messaging is still optimistic, but we are realistic about the possibility that things might not be working out,” said Rosa Armendariz, Los Medanos College’s activity director for the Pittsburg school’s federal Hispanic-Serving Institution grant.

Most of the groups say the added challenges mean students need to prepare early for college by taking the required classes through high school.

About 30 percent of the state’s nearly 2.8 million community college students are Latino. Although that’s a higher percentage than either the Cal State or University of California systems can boast, students and educators point out that people of all races have trouble making the leap from two-year to four-year colleges.

Researchers have estimated that as little as 18 percent of Latino community college students seeking a four-year degree succeed in transferring from the two-year schools. Many Latino students give up after four or five years in community college, said Miguel Marez, a 27-year-old master’s degree student at Cal State East Bay.

Latino students whose parents have no college experience need help filling out financial-aid forms and figuring out college paths, he said. Marez recalled many of his childhood friends giving up on college aspirations early.

“A lot of my friends would become landscapers or housekeepers,” said Marez, a social-work student. “I can think of a lot of male Latinos going into the military, but I can’t think of many who went into college.”

The state budget problems aren’t making that pathway any easier. Even at the particularly accessible community colleges, required courses are being cut, leaving fewer opportunities for working students to fit school into their schedules.

And UC leaders have left open the possibility that they will limit enrollment next year, perhaps shutting off another possibility for some students.

Even though many Spanish-speaking immigrants don’t understand the technical aspects of applying to college, they do understand the consequences if their children don’t attend college, said Michele Siqueiros, executive director of the Campaign for College Opportunity.

“Latinos understand that in this country, if you’re going to get ahead, you need to have an education,” she said. “If we don’t do anything about it, we’re not going to meet the state’s workplace needs.”

Popularity: 15% [?]

by Michelle J. Nealy, Diverse

The highly anticipated announcement of the next U.S. Secretary of Education brought varied reactions from three key African-American higher education constituencies and at least one Latino organization.

Antonio Flores, president of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, which had offered up several names of Latinos to Obama’ transition team as potential education appointees, says he holds out hope that Duncan will look to some of those names, particularly for the slot of undersecretary that oversees higher education.

Flores said Duncan was “an excellent choice” since he will soon have to take up the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act.

“My sense is, in his work with the Chicago Public Schools, he has had some relationship with higher education institutions in Chicago,” Flores said. “I suspect he would be a good person to work with… I realized he might not have hands-on policy experience in terms of higher education, but Congress just passed the Higher Education Act this year, so that’s not something he’ll have to take up early.”

Lezli Baskerville, president of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, was less gracious.

“NAFEO is disappointed,” said Baskerville. “We were supporting a number of compelling candidates including Dr. Belle Wheelan of the Southern Association of Colleges and Universities.”

Now the president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Universities, Wheelan was the Secretary of Education for the state of Virginia under former Governor Mark Warner and she was head of Virginia’s community college system.

Baskerville praised Wheelan for having a mix of pre-primary, primary, secondary and higher education experiences.

“At a time when we are losing 60 percent of African-American boys, the growing student populations are African-Americans as well as Latinos, and HBCUs continue to be the economic engines for the most distressed communities in the nation, it was my hope that we could have someone at the Department of Education that would signal the national priority to be placed on closing the achievement gaps, creating culturally sensitive educational opportunities for all students and pipeline them through diverse institutions.”

Other advocates question Duncan’s credentials on higher education.

Although Duncan serves on the Board of Overseers for Harvard College and the Visiting Committees for Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education and the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration, he has never taught in a classroom and has little experience formulating policy.

“He isn’t someone who has had a lot of background in higher education,” said Dr. Michael Lomax, president of the United Negro College Fund. “That will pose problems, but also some opportunities. One opportunity will be to bring others to the table who are highly experienced in [higher education].

“The number one issue facing this nation is our failure to ensure that our kids are graduating from high school in the cohort that they started in,” adds Lomax, who is rumored to be among those in consideration for assistant secretary of education. “That is a critical issue for the nation and anyone who brings experience in that is ahead of the game.”

Duncan, the latest member to be named to Obama’s Cabinet, has been touted by many as a reformer, raising achievement in the nation’s third-largest school district.

Duncan, has been called a “budding hero in the education business” by President Bush’s former education secretary, Rod Paige. After President-Elect Barack Obama announced Duncan as his education choice, current Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings hailed him as a “visionary” school leader.

Under his leadership overall high school graduation rates in Chicago improved 8 percent, growing from 47 percent to 55 percent, according to Catalyst Chicago, an independent news magazine. The number of Chicago students enrolling in college has also increased.

“Our college-going rates are up,” said Joyce Brown, manager of secondary school counselors in the Chicago Public Schools at a news conference in Washington last week.

Among the class of 2007 graduates, for example, half enrolled in college within the year after completing high school. That rate reflected an increase of 6.5 percentage points since 2003.

Still, inner-city schools, such John Marshall Metropolitan High School in the impoverished West Garfield Park community, have not done much better under Duncan’s leadership than under previous administrations. Marshall’s graduation rate, for instance, is 40 percent, up only four points; and its college-going rate actually declined 4 points to 31 percent under Duncan, according to Catalyst.

Some inner-city schools in low-income neighborhoods of Chicago are performing so poorly that Illinois state Sen. James Meeks helped to organize a mass boycott of Chicago Public Schools earlier this year as part of his Save Our Schools Now campaign. On Sept. 2, nearly 1,000 Chicago students skip school as part of the boycott, The Chicago Tribune reported.

The students were bussed to high-performing suburban schools on the outskirts of Chicago where they attempted to register. The goal of the boycott, says Meeks, was not to overwhelm high-performing school districts, but to illuminate the inequity of school funding in the city, he told a Chicago television station at the time.

Disparities in funding for struggling inner-city schools versus the amount of money that goes to wealthier, mostly White suburban schools has been a long-term problem for many school districts across the country. Chicago is no exception.

A Chicago Public Schools report shows that New Trier Township, located north of Chicago in Cook County, spent nearly $17,000 per student in 2005-06, while Chicago Public Schools spent an estimated $10,400 per pupil.

Meeks did not immediately return phone calls to Diverse to respond to questions about Duncan’s selection to become the next top education chief.

Chicago has made some strides under Duncan’s leadership, but district-wide high school test scores remain stagnant—only 31 percent of juniors meet state standards—leading many to question whether Chicago Public Schools graduates can succeed in college or in the job market.

Under Duncan, the lowest performing schools actually got worse, Catalyst reported this month. All but two of the city’s 10 lowest performing high schools in 2001 further deteriorated in 2008, Catalyst states.

Confronting the perils of a large urban public school system is a significant accomplishment, but enduring the rigors of a nation falling further and further behind is quite another, education officials say. When asked whether or not Duncan was a strong choice for education secretary, Dwayne Ashley, CEO and president of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund responded, “I think the proof is going to be in the pudding.”

“I think Arne is going to bring a new energy. He is progressive. He is a reformer. He understands K-12 and what we need to do to fix some of the challenges we have there,” Ashley said. “It’s going to be exciting to work with someone who brings the kinds of innovative ideas that he has.”

Lomax called Duncan an “outstanding choice.”

“Arne is going to bring on the ground experience to the office of Secretary of Education,” Lomax said. “He is going to bring experience from an urban school district with a large low-income minority student body. He hasn’t just talked about helping kids of color. He has really put his shoulder to the wheel.”

Popularity: 17% [?]

New report finds that the groups are doing better on meeting application requirements for UC and CSU but still trail whites and Asians.

By Larry Gordon, The Los Angeles Times

Despite recent improvements, Latino and black students continue to lag behind whites and Asians in becoming academically eligible to enter California’s two public university systems, according to a state report released Tuesday.

The study by the California Postsecondary Education Commission also showed that female high school seniors still do significantly better than males in taking required classes and earning grades and test scores that could gain them admission to the University of California and California State University systems.

Murray J. Haberman, the commission’s executive director, said he was pleased by the improved eligibility rates for African Americans and Latinos in the Cal State system. “Things are certainly moving in the right direction, although we still have a long way to go,” he said.

Haberman criticized recent proposals to reduce or cap enrollment at Cal State and UC. “Exactly at the time that more students are preparing themselves to go on to higher education, we are beginning to close the doors on so many of these students,” he said.

A student who wants to be admitted to either university first has to establish basic eligibility, then must typically meet separate, often tougher standards for the campuses at which they hope to enroll.

The study reported that 22.5% of Latino high school graduates were eligible for Cal State in 2007, up from 16% in 2003, when the last such study was done. For black students, Cal State eligibility went up to 24%, from 18.6%.

Latino and black eligibility for UC’s more rigorous standards were 6.9% and 6.3%,respectively, last year, slightly higher than four years ago.

White and Asian students did better in meeting requirements for both universities. For Cal State, 37.1% of white high school graduates were eligible last year and 50.9% of Asians, both somewhat higher than in 2003. For UC, 14.6% of white graduates and 29.4% of Asians met course, grade and test score requirements; those rates were both slightly lower than in the previous survey.

Factors holding down eligibility rates for black and Latino students include shortages of the necessary courses and sometimes inadequate counseling at high schools in many low-income, often predominantly minority areas, Haberman said.

Overall, Cal State rates rose mainly because more students met new requirements to take a second year of history and lab science, said Adrian Griffin, the commission’s research director. Griffin presented the report at a meeting Tuesday in Sacramento.

“It takes time for schools to adjust their offerings, and it takes a while for the message to sink in for students,” he said.

Griffin attributed the drops in white and Asian eligibility for UC to tighter course and grade requirements at the university.

Griffin also suggested that California’s high school exit exam, required since 2006, cut out weaker students and may have affected eligibility rates somewhat.

Continuing a gender imbalance at many U.S. colleges, more women than men were ready for California’s state universities. About 15.3% of female high school graduates were eligible for UC, compared with 11.2% of males, and 37.6% of women for Cal State, compared with 27.3% for males.

On a sliding scale that also includes standardized test scores, UC’s minimum grade point average in required high school courses is now a 3.0 — a B average on a 4-point scale — and Cal State’s is a 2.0, or a C average.

Those minimums, however, do not guarantee a spot at the most popular campuses, where much higher standards usually are enforced.

The eligibility study, which surveyed 72,000 transcripts at 158 public high schools around California, found that UC and Cal State requirements are well-aligned with their missions under the state’s 1960 master plan for higher education.

About 13.4% of California high school graduates were found to be eligible for UC in 2007, near the university’s target under the master plan of drawing from the top 12.5% of the state’s high school graduates. The Cal State eligibility rate was 32.7%, very close to its 33.3% master plan guideline.

Previous commission surveys influenced university requirements.

For example, four years ago, a report found that many otherwise UC-eligible students could not be accepted because they had not taken the two subject exams required by UC in addition to the basic SAT or ACT tests. Now, UC is on the verge of changes that, among other things, would drop the subject tests mandate.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Report also shows income, race gaps in college attendance

By Jean Cowden Moore, Ventura County Star

The United States, once a world leader in producing university graduates, is falling behind other countries in getting students ready for, into and through college.

Beyond that, there is still a significant gap in who goes to college and who doesn’t — a gap based on race, income and geography.

Those are key findings from “Measuring Up 2008,” a national report card that grades states on measures such as college preparation, participation, affordability and completion. States’ grades are based on how they perform when compared with the top-rated states in each category.

The report, released today, is issued every two years by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

The findings are especially troubling as the United States fights to remain competitive in today’s global economy, said Pat Callan, president of the center. Internationally, the United States has fallen to 10th in the percentage of young adults who have an associate degree or higher.

In addition, baby boomers, the best-educated generation in U.S. history, are retiring, creating a need for more college graduates, Callan said.

“We’ve made some modest gains, but that progress does not begin to match the challenges we face, or the progress other countries are making,” he said.

One of those challenges is the cost of college, which continues to rise, even as family income has flattened. Students from well-off families are far more likely to go to college than students from poor households, according to the report.

Among families earning $100,000 or more, 91 percent of students go to college. That number drops to 78 percent among middle-income families ($50,000 to $100,000). And for families earning less than $20,000 a year, it’s 52 percent.

“We need a new social contract about tuition,” Callan said. “It’s a political football that discourages low-income people from attending college and middle-income people from saving for it.”

California got mostly C’s on its report card, although it scored higher than any other state on affordability because community college fees here are so low.

That doesn’t mean the state’s four-year colleges are affordable. Poor and working-class families must spend 40 percent of their income, even after financial aid, to send their children to a four-year public university, the report says.

The state also got a C in participation, primarily because there is such a disparity in the percentage of white and Latino students who go to college. While 45 percent of white young adults in California are enrolled in college, only 27 percent of Latino students are enrolled, according to the report.

That disparity could widen as the CSU system limits enrollment next year because of state budget cuts. That move is expected to have the biggest impact on minority students and those who are the first in their families to go to college, because those two groups tend to be less familiar with the application process.

“States should take any step, rather than close college doors,” Callan said. “California has been the most ruthless about cutting enrollment during a recession.”

The state did somewhat better on college completion, earning a B-minus. About 62 percent of the state’s college students get their bachelor’s degrees within six years. The gap between white and Latino students, however, persists in this category, too. Two-thirds of white students graduate within six years, compared with 53 percent of Latinos.

Ventura County universities are working to address some of the issues. CSU Channel Islands in Camarillo, for example, works closely with local high schools through several programs to encourage low-income, minority and first-generation students to go to college and make sure they know and meet academic requirements.

The university also participates in the national Educational Opportunity Program, which provides support for students once they get to college.

“We begin these partnerships early,” said Jane Sweetland, CSUCI dean of enrollment services. “We catch kids before they fail and give them a support network.”

California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks has a program that allows students to attend the private university for the cost of a public school. Under the CLU Guarantee Scholarship, students admitted to either UCLA or UC Santa Barbara can attend CLU for the same price.

CLU also offers an extended summer orientation program for students who are the first in their families to attend college, or who come from low-income households.

In addition, the college has a new office of retention, aimed at tracking and supporting students at risk of dropping out.

“We’re getting a new mix of students, so the needs change,” said Matthew Ward, CLU vice president for enrollment management. “The assumptions we previously had about what students need will have to be turned on their head.”

Popularity: 17% [?]