California governor signs Cal State direct admissions program into law

Dive Brief:

Qualifying high school seniors in California will be automatically admitted to a California State University campus beginning with the 2026-27 academic year under a bill Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law this week. 
Under the program, eligible students will automatically receive letters notifying them that they have been directly admitted to Cal State campuses with enrollment capacity based on their academic records. 
The program expands a pilot announced last year limited to high school students in California’s Riverside County. Out of 17,000 students who received admission offers to Cal State for the fall 2025 term, 13,200 completed the required paperwork, according to state Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, who co-sponsored the bill.

Dive Insight:

California’s new legislation, called SB 640, aims to boost college access and help reverse enrollment declines at some of Cal State’s 23 campuses. 

A September news release from Cabaldon’s office noted two campuses with the biggest declines were in his district: CSU Maritime Academy — which recently merged with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo — and Sonoma State University, which announced deep budget and program cuts at the beginning of this year.

“Direct admission removes the applications hurdle that stops some students from going to college, and relieves the fear that they won’t get in anywhere,” Cabaldon said after SB 640 cleared California’s Legislature last month. 

The lawmaker cited a 2022 academic study of Idaho’s direct admissions program, implemented in 2015, that found the initiative increased first-time undergraduate enrollments by 4% to 8% — an average increase of 50 to 100 students per campus. It also boosted in-state enrollment levels by approximately 8% to 15%, the study found. 

Enrollment gains from the direct admissions program were concentrated mainly in community colleges, though it had “minimal-to-no impacts” on the enrollment of Pell Grant-eligible students, according to the study. At the time of publication, one of the researchers noted the lack of change was not surprising, given that the program did not focus on any particular student group.

Meanwhile, a 2023 study of 33,000 students found a Common App direct admissions initiative geared toward marginalized student groups increased applications among Black, Latinx, multiracial, first-generation and low-income students.

California joins a growing number of states incorporating direct admissions into the acceptance process for their public colleges. That list includes North Carolina, which this year offered 62,000 public high school students admissions into one of dozens of institutions through the NC College Connect Program, an expansion of a pilot launched last year.

“The process of applying to college, transferring between institutions, and navigating the maze of financial aid feels like an insurmountable series of hurdles,” Shun Robertson, the University of North Carolina’s senior vice president for strategy and policy, told Higher Ed Dive earlier this fall. “Eliminating these barriers has been a high priority.”

Institutions in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Hawai’i, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Utah and West Virginia also offer direct admissions programs.