State eyes proposal to raise bar for college entrance

Jennifer Knight

Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2001 | 9:58 a.m.

A plan is in the works to boost the reputation of Nevada's universities by raising college entrance requirements, which, officials say, will attract the state's best and brightest.

The Board of Regents will decide whether to raise the grade point average requirement at both the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the University of Nevada, Reno, when it meets Oct. 18 and 19 in Fallon.

Both universities require a minimum 2.5 GPA; by 2005 the requirement will be 3.0 under the proposal.

School officials also want to raise tuition rates by as much as 40 percent over the next 10 years.

"In the past the university felt pressured to accept more students with a lower GPA, because there were no other options for a (bachelor's) degree," said Jane Nichols, Nevada's higher education chancellor.

UNLV officials want the school to earn a reputation as a research institution, but freshmen are often forced to take remedial courses just to get up to speed, Nichols said.

"What we know is that the community college is a better place for students who may not be ready for college-level work," Nichols said.

The plan to raise admissions requirements at UNLV dovetails with plans for a new state college.

Ideally the Nevada State College at Henderson would accept students who cannot get into UNLV. Low tuition rates, coupled with a suggested minimum GPA of 2.0, would allow high school students greater access to higher education.

Nevada has the lowest go-to-college rate in the nation. According to a university system study, only 25 percent of Nevada's high school graduates enroll in state colleges. The percentage of those who earn bachelor's degrees is low, as well.

Only 12 percent of UNLV freshmen complete their bachelor's degrees within four years, according to U.S. News and World Report's annual college ranking. Another 28 percent complete within five years, and 36 percent within six years, the ranking says.

The theory, officials say, is that by selecting the students most likely to succeed in college, the universities would improve their own completion rates. They also could offer fewer remedial courses and redirect those resources to research and to courses that higher-level students want.

But that is only one theory, a Clark County school official said.

"I'm very concerned about the university system raising the GPA," said Agustin Orci, deputy superintendent of curriculum at Clark County School District. "There are a lot of kids who would get knocked out of the running for college."

Orci believes that GPA is important, but it's not always the best indicator of how well students will do when they go to college. GPAs can be affected by family situations or jobs, and all of those factors should be taken into consideration, he said.

But by becoming more selective, evidence suggests UNLV could build a strong reputation as a research institution, says education expert Anthony Lising Antonio, an assistant professor at Stanford University.

"One of the ways you market yourself as a good university is by touting yourself as a selective institution," Antonio said. "If your goal is to be a better research institution, it's probably going to reduce the number of remedial courses, and you can put those resources into more laboratories and research faculty."

UNLV's plan, however, depends on the advancement of the struggling state college, Regent Howard Rosenberg said.

The Henderson college has yet to obtain the funding it needs to hire administrators to develop a curriculum.

Regents Oct. 25 and 26 also are scheduled to decide whether to take to the Interim Finance Committee a revised proposal to fund the college.

Regents, who failed in their effort to borrow $700,000 from the state's estate tax fund, want to borrow $530,000 under the revised proposal.

"I think much of what we're doing with increasing admissions standards is predicated on the Nevada State College," Rosenberg said. "I would not want to do anything right now if something doesn't happen with that soon."