Fewer Qualified for College in ‘99, Study Says

SACRAMENTO —  California’s public high schools will graduate nearly 330,000 seniors in 1999--mostly members of racial minorities.

But a new state educational survey, released Tuesday, says proportionately fewer will be qualified to enter four-year colleges than today’s seniors.

The survey says that through the end of the 1990s, about 62% of all pubic school students in California will be members of racial minorities.

Norm Gold of the state Department of Education said the report indicates that a tremendous surge in enrollment--to about 5 million students in kindergarten through 12th grade through the 1990s--will “fuel the demand for an upsurge of new teachers.”

Decline to Continue

But the proportion of students entering four-year colleges will decline, in part because minority students suffer economic and cultural difficulties that hamper their potential for college success.

The result, Gold said, “is that college graduates will be in high demand,” facing heavy courting from military and industrial recruiters. The job market for graduating college students, he said, will offer top employment to those who are “highly verbal with interpersonal skills. Those are the careers of choice, the careers of promise.”

Gold and Keith Pailthorp of the California Postsecondary Education Commission presented their 25-page report to the Assembly Subcommittee on Higher Education, chaired by Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica). The survey was based on statistics from several sources, including the state Education Department and the Finance Department, which watches population trends.

Fewer Qualifying for UC

The study says high school graduates who could qualify for the University of California and the California State University system will decline--about 6% for the state university and nearly 10% for UC--from 1980 figures.