Under the new process, eligible California high school students will be automatically admitted into the CSU system.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A new California law is changing how high school seniors get into college, automatically admitting qualified students into the California State University system starting in the new year.
The direct admissions program is designed to cut down on stress and paperwork for students while opening doors across the state. Sacramento State is among the CSU campuses taking part.
Under the new process, eligible California high school students will be automatically admitted into the CSU system. For Florin High School senior Jayda Lewis, the news was immediate and personal.
“I was super happy to see that,” Lewis said.
Lewis said the law means she has already been admitted to 16 CSU campuses. Those include CSU Bakersfield, CSU Channel Islands, Chico State, CSU Dominguez Hills, Cal State East Bay, Fresno State, Cal Poly Humboldt, Cal State LA, Cal State Monterey Bay, CSU Northridge, Sacramento State, Cal State San Bernardino, San Francisco State, Cal State San Marcos, Sonoma State and Stanislaus State.
Her top choice is Cal State LA because it keeps her close to family.
“I was like this is gonna be a game changer for us California students because now we have more options and that takes a lot of stress off of us,” Lewis said.
Students will also be able to apply to six other CSU campuses that already have high enrollment, though admission to those schools is not guaranteed in 2026. Those campuses are CSU Fullerton, CSU Long Beach, Cal Poly Pomona, San Diego State, San Jose State and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
State Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, a Democrat from West Sacramento, introduced the bill. The law builds off programs he helped launch while serving as mayor, to secure tuition-free admission to Sacramento City College for local high school graduates.
Cabaldon said the California State University has also partnered with the Riverside County Office of Education to admit every eligible graduating senior in Riverside County into the CSU system.
“SB 640 takes that local example from my own community and CSU’s pilot program and scales them to make them possible statewide,” Cabaldon said during a Senate Committee meeting in April.
Lawmakers say the change is also intended to address declining enrollment at CSU campuses, some of which are seeing sharp drops.
“We have so many CSU campuses in particular that are experiencing precipitous declines in enrollment to the point of threatening their viability,” Cabaldon said during that committee meeting.
The bill would do away with the lengthy application process by using data from the CaliforniaColleges.edu website to determine eligibility. The California Guidance Initiative would send direct letters of admission to students, informing them which CSU campuses they have been automatically accepted into.
According to the school system, qualified students would still need to submit an application to receive an official letter of acceptance. That process would be done through CaliforniaColleges.edu, where students choose which schools to apply to directly.
Cabaldon has argued that moving from high school to college for qualified students should be as seamless as moving from middle school to high school.
“When you take a step back, you wonder, well, where does this gap come from in the first place?” Cabaldon said. “It’s the whole process of going to college and applying for it, hoping, waiting for financial aid, it’s not in the physics textbook, it’s not in the Bible, it’s not in the Constitution, it’s entirely an invention of us.”
Lewis said the impact is already clear.
“That’s definitely a game changer for me because it’s right there. The opportunity is right there,” she said.
State leaders say the direct admissions program will expand again by fall 2027, reaching more campuses and more students.