High school seniors across California are anxiously awaiting word on their public university acceptances. But thousands of other soon-to-be graduates are virtually locked out. A key reason? Nearly half haven’t taken the required classes.
Statewide, 54% of high school students pass the classes minimally needed to enroll in the University of California or California State University systems as freshmen, according to a CalMatters analysis of traditional high schools. In recent years the state has provided extra funding to help schools boost their numbers, but the readiness rate has only inched up.
Low-income, Black and Latino students have among the lowest class-completion rates. English learners and students with disabilities also have low rates, but the numbers have climbed slightly the past few years.
California’s two public university systems require all students applying for admission to earn a C or better in a suite of courses. The requirements are four years of English, three of math, two years each of science, social science and foreign language and one year of art.
Known as the A-G requirements, they often dictate a student’s schedule beginning in ninth grade or even earlier. It’s easy for a student to fall off track — by getting a D or F in a class, for instance, or by skipping a tough class like chemistry or trigonometry, or by not taking a class if their school doesn’t offer it.
CalMatters looked at data from the 2024-25 school year for 1,468 public high schools, excluding about 800 alternative high schools, some specialized schools with high A-G rates, continuation schools and juvenile detention programs. The analysis shows that 222 of those schools posted A-G completion rates of less than 30%. More than 400 schools had A-G rates exceeding 70%.
Researchers weigh in
Schools may have few students completing the full suite of A-G courses for a variety of reasons, said Sherrie Reed Bennett and Michal Kurlaender, education researchers at UC Davis who wrote a 2023 analysis on the gaps in A-G rates across public high schools. Some schools may offer the courses, but students don’t enroll in them. Or students earn below a C in these courses and don’t retake them after school or during the summer. Next, teachers may not allow students to repeat assignments in order to avoid having to retake a class; some schools allow this.
Meanwhile, nearly a tenth of traditional high schools didn’t offer the needed courses, the researchers’ data show.
Ideally, all students should be enrolled in A-G courses, Bennett and Kurlaender said. It’s the only way to guarantee that all students have the option of enrolling in a four-year university after high school.
Within 16 months of finishing a traditional high school, 86% of students who graduated with the required UC and Cal State courses enrolled at a college or university. Among students who didn’t complete that A-G sequence, just 55% enrolled, with the vast majority entering a community college, according to the latest state data, from 2023.
A Compton high school’s big leap
Last spring Dominguez High in Compton Unified had among California’s highest percentage of students graduating who met the UC and Cal State requirements — 96% were A-G ready, according to the California Department of Education.
“To this day, you get that sense of, like, ‘Wait, who, Compton?” said Jorge Torres, the district’s director of college and career readiness, on how the district’s recent turnaround is a constant surprise to people he meets at conferences. At Dominguez High, around 91% of students are eligible for a federal school meal waiver, making the campus’s student body among the poorest in the state.
Reaching the high A-G rate took about 10 years, said Torres, and is the result of a few key decisions the district and school’s principal made. In 2015 the district created Compton Early College High School, which emphasized a college-going culture for its students and exposed many to a wide array of community college courses. By 2020, all of the school’s students were graduating on time and completing the necessary courses for UC and Cal State eligibility.
But the school is smaller than Compton Unified’s other comprehensive high schools. Could they scale their results across the district’s larger high schools?
This meant Dominguez no longer offered classes that didn’t meet the UC and Cal State standards, said principal Caleb Oliver. He added an extra period during the school day so students could retake an A-G course without staying late or enrolling in the summer.
The school also revised its student counseling model so that two counselors stay with the same cohort of students for all four years. Torres said that too made a difference. So did adding a counselor who focuses only on college admissions and preparation at all of Compton Unified’s traditional high schools.
The year the school adopted the A-G graduation requirement, about two-thirds of its seniors finished high school having met the UC and Cal State admission criteria. By 2024, when the first freshmen held to the higher standard were graduating, about three-quarters of students graduated A-G ready. The next year, the rate jumped more than 20 percentage points, to 96%.
The work that district and school staff put into Dominguez High School “seems like a strong example of best practices,” said Iwunze Ugo, a researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California who has published reports on A-G rates. Dominguez and several other schools at Compton Unified have earned state recognition this year as “distinguished” campuses.
Gisele Genovez, a Dominguez senior, will have taken 14 community college courses by the time she graduates this spring. She applied to UC and Cal State schools with nursing programs and earned acceptances to several. “This school has really shown the importance of taking college courses, how it will benefit you, and it’s not something that you’re going to regret in the future,” she said.
As a Dominguez freshman, Alexis Hernandez didn’t think he’d attend college because he assumed he’d be priced out as a low-income student. But the school’s A-G requirement prepared him anyway.
“Just going to work after high school” was the route for students from low-income families, he thought. By 11th grade, he was excited to apply to college the following year and live on a university campus that’s within driving distance of home.
Now a senior, Hernandez has taken one community college course and has been accepted to several Cal State and UC campuses while he awaits results from other campuses. How will he choose which nearby school to attend? Whichever awards him the most financial aid, he said.
According to state data, slightly more than half of Dominguez students head to college within 16 months of graduating, though the latest figures are from 2023. That’s a bit lower than previous years, but lately fewer of the school’s college-bound students enroll in community college and more attend four-year universities.
Past a certain point, the school is limited in what its students choose to do after high school, Oliver said. Colleges play a role in attracting students, as well.
Programs that expose admitted students to free summer courses and introduce research-tested study skills can be the determining factor for an admitted student deciding whether to enroll, he said. Oliver noted such a program at nearby Cal State Dominguez Hills, a university that enrolls about two dozen Dominguez High students annually.
But students benefit “if they sign up for it,” he cautioned. “Everything is if they sign up for it. We can offer, but we need you to take hold of it.”
About the data
CalMatters looked at data from the 2024-25 school year for 1,468 public high schools. We excluded about 800 alternative high schools, some specialized schools with high A-G rates, continuation schools and juvenile detention programs.
To conduct the analysis, CalMatters merged the California Department of Education’s graduation rate by high school for the 2024-25 school year, which contained A-G rates, with the Public Schools and Districts Data File and the department’s data on schools in the Free and Reduced Price Meal program, a common way to measure low-income status at a school.
CalMatters selected all high schools that weren’t labeled as “alternative” in the graduation rate data or in the Public Schools and Districts Data File.
‘D equals diploma, C equals college’
Schools with lower A-G completion rates tended to have higher numbers of English learners or students in special education. Plenty of those students enroll in A-G courses, but if they need extra support, such as speech therapy or language development, for a period or two a day it’s difficult to complete all the required courses needed to gain admission to UC or CSU, school administrators said.
Bennett and Kurlaender at UC Davis said that’s a poor excuse, and that far more students in special education or who are English learners should be able to complete A-G courses. To help schools boost their numbers, the state provides grants for schools and districts to hire tutors, expand college counseling or take other steps.
At Mt. Diablo High and Ygnacio Valley High, both in Concord, nearly 90% of students are English learners or low-income. Both schools also have higher-than-average numbers of students with disabilities. And both schools had A-G completion rates under 25% last year.
“This is a huge priority that we’re working hard on,” said Heather Fontanilla, director of college and career readiness for Mt. Diablo Unified School District, which includes both schools. “Ultimately, we want students to have post-secondary choices, including the chance to go to a four-year college. We do not want their transcript making decisions on what options they have available.”
The district is trying to raise its numbers by changing more courses to be A-G eligible, although the tough part is getting students to pass those classes. Students have to earn a C or better in an A-G course for it to count toward college admission, but only need a D for the class to satisfy the graduation requirement.
“We tell the kids, D equals diploma, but C equals college,” said Fontanilla. “All it takes is for a student to get below a C and everything starts to spiral.”
That’s because students who get below a C have to retake the class if they still want to enroll at a 4-year college. Make-up classes are typically held after school, a potential conflict for students who have jobs or family responsibilities.
So the district has started offering tutoring for students who are struggling, in hopes of saving their A-G eligibility before their C slips to a D. The district is also expanding outreach to parents so they can better support their children’s college-preparation efforts.
Manteca High in San Joaquin County also has a low A-G completion rate, close to 30%.
“We have a great graduation rate,” said Clara Schmiedt, assistant superintendent, noting that Manteca High’s graduation rate is nearly 95% and the school was recently named a California Distinguished School. “But raising our A-G rate is a priority for us.”
One issue at Manteca High has been chemistry. Many students have struggled to pass, so the district is introducing a new curriculum and adding a new science teacher. Another problem is foreign language. The school only offers a few French classes, so students taking French might not be able to fulfill the foreign language requirement for A-G.
The district is also trying to change the culture around college. It’s expanding its dual enrollment program at a local community college, and sends dozens of students every summer to an academic institute at University of the Pacific in Stockton.
“We’re really trying to innovate,” Schmeidt said, “so students have as many opportunities as possible.”
