UC should examine how it sorts students by campus

The University of California is once again debating whether to use standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT in undergraduate admissions. More than 3,000 UC faculty members have signed a letter or petition supporting a return to standardized testing, and the Board of Regents may reconsider its prior decision to abandon testing.

Much of the debate has focused on a narrow empirical question: Do standardized tests help predict whether students will succeed at UC?

Some faculty argue that test scores provide information about academic preparation that is not fully captured by high school grades. Others argue that the tests are not that useful once students’ socioeconomic backgrounds are taken into account, which suggests that the tests largely serve as a proxy for parental resources.

These are important issues, but the question of how to organize admissions in a public university cannot be settled by a horse race between predictive models. Even if the empirical claims made by proponents of the SAT are correct, a more fundamental question remains: How much should the UCs admit and sort students across campuses by predicted academic performance?

Consider a large public high school. The school is not permitted to turn students away as long as they meet the qualifications to attend. The school offers a wide range of courses, some remedial and some advanced, and a diverse group of students enroll in courses based on their interests and preparation.

Compare this to two public schools in highly segregated neighborhoods. The schools both receive roughly equal public funding, but private funds at the wealthier school cause it to have substantially more resources per student and attract higher quality teachers. The students at the wealthier school have better academic and career outcomes.

The University of California resembles the second model more than it would care to admit. UC campuses are formally parts of a single public university, but they operate in a hierarchy. 

Consider the differences between UC Merced and UC Berkeley. Merced receives more funding per student from the state of California than other UC campuses, but once private funds are taken into account Berkeley spends nearly twice as much per student. 

The acceptance rate at Berkeley is about 11%, while it is about 95% at Merced. As a result, students entering Berkeley are more qualified in terms of grades and test scores. They also are more likely to be taught by full-time instructors, rather than lecturers. Graduation rates are higher at Berkeley, as are starting salaries for graduates.

The existing hierarchy across UC campuses may well reinforce — rather than remedy — the existing social, economic, racial and geographic inequalities among students. 

Of course, students should be qualified to attend university and to enroll in advanced classes. But there is good reason to be skeptical about segregating students across different campuses based on their current academic preparation. Such separation has other, pernicious consequences.

California should consider moving in the opposite direction.

The state already has a modest alternative in its Eligibility in the Local Context program, which identifies students in the top 9% of participating California high schools and guarantees them a place somewhere in the UC system.

This program has increased graduation rates among eligible students who enrolled in a UC campus rather than Cal State or community college. Still, most students in the program enroll in the lower-ranked UC campuses.

Why not go further? Texas provides a useful precedent. Its Top Ten Percent Plan grants automatic admission to any Texas public university for the top 10% of graduating students from every Texas high school. (The percentage subsequently was narrowed for UT-Austin; now it accepts only the top 5%.)

The underlying principle is important: once students are deemed qualified, the most prepared students shouldn’t be placed in only the most well resourced and arguably highest quality campuses.  

It’s likely a more integrated UC system would have costs. Campuses would have to adjust to a different mix of students. The leading campuses might fall in the college rankings. Some students might choose different colleges, and faculty recruitment and retention could become more difficult.

These costs should be debated openly. The University of California is a public institution, supported by the people of a large and diverse state. Its undergraduate admissions system should reflect a considered view about the role of public higher education.

The SAT debate should encourage us to think about these larger questions. If the Board of Regents is considering how to better sort California students, it should also ask whether it has been sorting them too much.