Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

Home › News › Education

Tougher college admission standards softened a bit

Panel modifies foreign language and math rules

Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 11, 2007 at midnight

Text size  

More Education

More stories »

Students will face somewhat less stringent admission standards to Colorado colleges in 2010 than previously planned.

The Colorado Commission on Higher Education decided Tuesday to keep a fourth year of high school math as a requirement, but modified the requirement to allow courses such as business math, as well as harder courses such as calculus.

The commission also reduced the two-year foreign language requirement to one year.

The department of higher education, which staffs the commission, will come up with a plan by the end of the year to provide waivers for students who are unable to take all of the required courses.

Present rules allow colleges to admit a limited number of promising students who do not meet admission standards.

Current admission standards are based on grade point average and test scores.

In 2003, the commission added course requirements to take effect in two phases.

Under the first phase, students entering public colleges in fall 2008 will need to have completed a high school program that includes a minimum of four years of English; three years each of math, science and social science; and two years of electives.

Beginning in the fall of 2010, the requirements were increased to include a fourth year of math and two years of foreign languages.

Tuesday's decision came after complaints from some school districts that they would not be able to offer the fourth-year math course or the foreign languages because they can't afford to hire more teachers or can't recruit qualified teachers to rural areas.

Gerald Keefe, superintendent of the Kit Carson School District in Cheyenne County, said that the modifications adopted Tuesday are "better than what we had." But the waiver provision remains a major question, said Keefe, who chairs a rural superintendents' group.

Permitting a less intense math course in the fourth year means that students will feel less pressured to drop subjects such as music in their senior year - another big concern, Keefe said.

The commission beat back calls from both college and public school officials to push the tougher entrance requirements back from 2010 to 2012.

"If we continue to put pressure on ourselves as adults, we can get this done," Commissioner James Stewart said of the need to stick with 2010.

or 303 954-5209