Shutting Out Hometown Applicants - Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed

Student demand keeps on building at California State University, but the overcrowded system doesn’t have the money to increase enrollment. And the only answer for most of the system’s 23 campuses may be to increase selectivity, which can hurt less academically prepared students who live near those universities. San Jose State University’s president, Mohammad Qayoumi, on Tuesday announced that the university would no longer guarantee admission to students from surrounding Santa Clara County who meet the system’s basic requirements. Adding new competitive measures for local students wasn’t an easy call for Qayoumi and the university, which had withdrawn the proposal earlier this year, and held packed public hearings on the admissions shift in March. But most observers agree that the university’s leaders hands were tied, and that they had probably held the line on the admissions guarantee as long as possible.