A majority of Los Angeles County school districts sent dramatically fewer high school graduates to California public colleges and universities in 1994, a worrisome exception to the statewide trend, according to figures released today by the state Department of Education.
In the fall of 1994, about 33,000 high school graduates countywide enrolled as freshmen in the California community colleges, California State University and the University of California, a drop in the percentage figure of 2.3 points from 1992. Among graduates of the Los Angeles Unified School District's high schools, college attendance dropped 4.1 percentage points between 1992 and 1994.
Statewide, public college and university enrollment increased 2 percentage points over the same time period. But state figures show the longer trend is one of decline, with public college attendance down 1.3 points since 1987.
The report also showed that declining numbers of California students were taking technical and vocational courses that could lead to jobs, a finding that darkened the overall outlook for the future of recent high school graduates.
"It's a chilling statistic," said State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin. "You can't say a lot of kids aren't going to college but they are preparing for highly skilled technical jobs. Quite the contrary . . . college enrollment is off and vocational enrollment is off too."
The drop in public college attendance--as high as 40% for some individual schools--not only struck districts with many poor, minority students, such as Los Angeles Unified, but also more affluent school systems, such as South Pasadena.
School officials and higher education experts attribute the decline in Los Angeles County to a variety of factors, including lack of adequate preparation for college work. In communities with a larger base of students from middle- and upper-income families, officials said, public college attendance fell because more students were choosing private colleges.
Most cited, however, were a court ruling that effectively barred many illegal immigrants from the state's two-year colleges, and state budget cuts that sent UC and Cal State tuition costs spiraling upward and led to freshmen enrollment caps throughout the 20-campus Cal State system.
"Every message California sent to prospective college students in the first half of the 1990s was a negative one," said Patrick Callan, executive director of the California Higher Education Policy Center, a San Jose think tank.
"Through the early '90s, until last year . . . UC had raised tuitions 135%, and CSU by 100%. Financial aid didn't keep up. Among people who worry about public schools, there is a huge concern that we are chilling kids' aspirations for college. We shook the public's faith in the early '90s."
Overall college attendance by California high school graduates has declined more than in any other major industrial state, Callan said. A study of college-going students between 1988 and 1992 showed California's rate falling 6.9%. New York, by contrast, went up 22%.
California's public institutions of higher learning are the predominant choice of the state's high school graduates, said Jeanne Ludwig of the California Postsecondary Education Commission in Sacramento. Only about 3.5% of the state's high school graduates attend California private, independent colleges. Their enrollments also have declined, Ludwig said.
Some of the drop in public college attendance may be due to downsizing in the Cal State system, where funding fell by $200 million during the early 1990s. Enrollment dropped by 50,000 between 1990 and 1994.
Cal State enrollments are expected to grow about 1% annually for the next three years.
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Ludwig said some evidence suggests that many students who could afford to left the state to earn a bachelor's degree. Between 1988 and 1992, according to one study she cited, the percentage of California high school graduates going out of state to attend a four-year college increased from 3.2% to 4.6%.
"That is a big increase," Ludwig said. "Those who had the money thought they might be better off sending their kids out of state. [It could be] they lost rich kids."
College counselors and admissions officials said the state's just-ending economic downturn and greater difficulty in getting financial aid raise the barriers to all forms of college education high enough to shut out students who could have afforded it before.
Admissions officers and counselors staffing booths at the National College Fair held Monday at the Pasadena Convention Center said other states are beginning to see similar trends, although less severe.
"Any college here you ask, if they tell you their enrollment isn't down, they're lying," said Jerome C. Martin, an admissions counselor for San Jose State.
