Santa Barbara’s Black, Latinx Grads Less Likely to Get into California’s Public Universities

Black and Latinx high school graduates met University of California and California State University eligibility requirements at nearly half the rate that white and Asian students did in Santa Barbara Unified School District in 2021, according to a presentation at Tuesday’s school board meeting.

A-G requirements are the minimum transcript requirements for students to be eligible to apply to UC and CSU directly from high school. In 2021, 40.91 percent of Black graduates, 42.95 percent of Latinx graduates, and 40.77 percent of low-income graduates made A-G requirements. In the same graduating class, 83.74 percent of Asian graduates and 72.88 percent of white graduates met A-G.

“[A-G] represents students’ choices upon graduation,” said Shawn Carey, assistant superintendent of secondary education. “We don’t want to be in a position where any student has fewer or more limited choices than another student because of the system that we run in our school district.”