Don’t delay tougher admission standards

Try as the Board of Regents might to improve the quality of scholarship at the state's undistinguished public universities, its members apparently will have to spend part of their August meeting in Reno beating back the bigotry of low expectations yet again. Less than a year after regents decided against delaying tougher admission standards at UNLV and UNR, Northern Nevada activists are still agitating to let middling high school graduates enter doctorate-granting institutions.

Come August, incoming university freshmen must have a minimum high school grade-point average of 3.0. The current minimum GPA of 2.75 took effect in 2006 over the shrill cries of defeatists who maintained the longstanding, embarrassingly low threshold of 2.5 was difficult enough.

UNLV and UNR were wasting precious resources putting unprepared freshmen of all colors through remedial classes, then watching them fail more rigorous material and drop out. The first bump in admission standards had the desired effect: Enrollment dropped at UNLV and UNR and increased at Nevada's community and state colleges, allowing less-proficient students to boost their skills at a lower cost while providing them with a chance to earn their way into a university program.

Black enrollment grew at UNR, but it shrank at UNLV. Hispanic enrollment dropped at both schools, although not as much as overall enrollment. Nonetheless, the Reno-Sparks chapter of the NAACP and the ACLU of Nevada now essentially claim that requiring entering university freshmen to have a B average in high school will unfairly discriminate against non-Asian minorities.

"What we are opposing is a higher GPA requirement in the absence of comprehensive programs to avoid disproportional impacts on minority and low-income students," said ACLU of Nevada President Richard Siegel.

Perhaps Mr. Siegel hasn't heard of a "comprehensive program" called public education. Taxpayers spend a few billion dollars on it each year.

Advocates of lower admission standards base their pleas on two arguments: that if mediocre black and Hispanic students aren't allowed into UNLV and UNR straight out of high school, they'll forgo community college and quit school altogether out of spite; and that most black and Hispanic students simply aren't capable of earning a 3.0 GPA in high school, anyway.

These assertions are so ridiculous they're dangerous. The university system already has established a series of admission exemptions for high school graduates with low GPAs, including one for overcoming "hardships." Demanding better high school marks in an age of rampant grade inflation isn't denying anyone access to higher education.

Some Nevada high school students might need time to recalibrate their efforts to meet a higher admissions bar. But they've known for years that this fall's change was coming. To delay its implementation would be a disservice to all those who've stepped up their studies to achieve it, and to the universities expecting a stronger class of undergraduates.

The Board of Regents must resist this politically correct pressure and stick to its guns. The university system and the state will be better off if this year's higher admission standards are left alone.