The value of a college degree continues to rise. A bachelor's degree in particular provides unrivaled economic and health benefits not just for the individual earning the degree, but for the entire state. Therefore, it is not surprising to see growing demand for a college education coupled with growing eligibility for California's public…

The creation of racially diverse colleges at all levels of selectivity has proven to be no small task, even with the legal use of race-conscious affirmative action. As evidenced in the postsecondary destinations of the high school class of 2004, very selective schools (those with Barron's Selectivity rankings of 1, 2 or 3) have many more White,…

Justice Goodwin Liu reexamined seminal affirmative action in higher education legal cases beginning with the landmark 1978 case, "Regents of the University of California v. Bakke" and leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 decision in "Gratz v. Bollinger." Liu argued that the "Bakke and Gratz" lawsuits were…

Given the overwhelming popular appeal of merit-based college admissions, George La Noue advocates a new transparency in how colleges and universities select their students. He has some suggestions about how colleges might comply with court-mandated requirements for case-by-case evaluations. He also provides hints from which NAS members might…

Sampled colleges nationwide to determine whether admissions criteria differed significantly for minority groups. Results indicated minorities are expected to show evidence of quantifiable accomplishment. Noncognitive factors were less important. Private and Protestant colleges were more likely to consider motivation and admissions interviews. (JAC)

This report presents selected preliminary findings for the Center for Equal Opportunity's undergraduate admissions project for the University of California, Berkeley, 1993-1995. It describes the racial and ethnic composition of Berkeley enrollees and racial and ethnic differences in Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) scores and grade point averages.…

This study examines the extent to which racial preferences are used in a cross-section of Michigan's public universities and attempts to determine how the elimination of racial preferences would affect the enrollment patterns of these schools. It submits actual admissions data from eight public universities to statistical analysis. All eight…

City College of San Francisco's Nursing Department has had an oversubscription of applications and an under-representation of minority students for a number of years. Although the department can only accommodate 96 students per year, over 600 subscribed in 1977. The purposes of this inquiry were to compare associate degree nursing program…

The consequences of the end of minority preferences in the University of California (UC) schools of law and medicine are explored. The first students admitted into these graduate schools on a colorblind basis will begin classes in the fall of 1997. None of these students received a racial preference in admission, as a result of a 1995 decision by…

This study examines the extent to which racial preferences are used in Colorado's 12 public colleges and universities and attempts to determine how the elimination of racial preferences would affect enrollment patterns in these schools. It uses actual admissions data from the State Commission on Higher Education. Detailed analysis shows that all…

As the decision in the Bakke case drew near, Chicanos addressed the question of what they and higher education could do to insure increased minority admissions into graduate and professional schools. Commonly suggested proposals of changing formal admissions criteria and direct intervention by the law and government often cause more problems than…