The California State University system launched a direct admissions pilot last year, offering qualifying high school seniors at school districts in Riverside County admission to 10 of its institutions. The program turned out to be an unqualified success: The number of graduates from the district who enrolled at a CSU campus this fall jumped 9 percent.
His father got a job in construction, his mother cleaning houses. He learned English better than Spanish: I feel like I'm from here, but without papers I don't have the same opportunities. That fact has forced him to work twice as hard. He wanted to earn a degree in computer science to merge, he says, technology, politics, and law. He did well for four semesters.