Most decline option to defer

The vast majority of students offered deferred admission to the
University of California through the Guaranteed Transfer Option
turned down the university’s offer, with less than 20 percent
accepting the transfer option.

Because of budget restrictions and decreased funding to the
university, 7,600 students were promised acceptance to the UC
campus of their choice after completing two years at a community
college.

Of the 7,600 students offered admission through the transfer
option, only 1,357 accepted, according to UC officials. The
deadline for students to accept the transfer option was June 1.

In previous years, all eligible in-state students have been
admitted to the university, making this the first year the UC has
not been able to accept all those who are eligible.

Students would have up to four years to take classes and
complete requirements to gain admission to the campus that offered
them the guaranteed transfer. The average GPA of students offered
transfer options was 3.46, compared to 3.8 for all admitted
students.

Many in the Democrat-controlled state Legislature have been
vocal in their opposition to the cuts to higher education proposed
under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget revision.

Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose and chairman of the state
Senate Education Committee, said he was “astonished” by
the number of students that declined the offer of guaranteed
transfer.

He said the university’s failure to admit the eligible
students was a breaking of the California Master Plan for Higher
Education, which established the deal that the university would
accept all eligible high school graduates from California.

“I wish that each student that got a rejection letter
would come to the Capitol and stay here until the university doors
are open to them again,” Vasconcellos said.

In an effort to soften the disappointment of students who were
given the transfer option, Schwarzenegger’s budget proposes
to waive community college fees for those who accepted the option.
The fee waiver must still be approved by the state Legislature.

Sen. Jack Scott, D-Pasadena and chairman of the Senate Education
Subcommittee on Higher Education, said the number of students that
accepted the transfer option “just illustrates the disaster
of the governor’s budget.”

Scott added that the guaranteed transfer plan is very unfair to
students who qualified for UC admission and said “the
governor’s budget is woefully inadequate for the University
of California.”

But UC officials said they were more surprised than upset about
the figures. Hanan Eisenman, a spokesman for the UC Office of the
President, said the 18 percent of high school students who accepted
the transfer option was higher than predicted by the
university.

According to Eisenman, the UC was expecting only 10 percent to
12 percent of applicants who were offered the transfer option to
accept.

George Blumenthal, vice chair of the UC faculty senate, said,
“I’m not surprised by the low number of students that
accepted it. I am surprised by the high number of students that
accepted it.”

Blumenthal said more students accepted the guaranteed transfer
than previously accepted referrals to UC Riverside and Santa
Cruz.

Referrals were used in previous years to accommodate all
eligible UC applicants.

Because this was the first year for the guaranteed transfer
program, university officials had no way to predict the number of
students who would accept the offer.

Community college officials are also relieved that only 18
percent of students accepted the transfer offer.

Cheryl Fong, a spokeswoman for the Chancellor’s Office of
California Community Colleges, said the community colleges had
planned on enrolling 3,200 UC-eligible students as was proposed by
Schwarzenegger’s budget. Now they will be able to easily
enroll the 1,357 students as well as provide the necessary services
to them, she said.

According to the May revision of the state budget, the UC will
be able to enroll all eligible students next year, making the
guaranteed transfer a temporary solution to this year’s
budget woes.

The actual success of the proposed budget depends greatly on
improvement in the state’s economy as well as passage by the
Legislature.

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