Cabaldon Bill to automatically admit high school seniors to CSU advances in state Senate
SACRAMENTO (April 31, 2025) Senator Christopher Cabaldon (D-Yolo) remembers the excitement he felt as a high school senior when he received his college acceptance letter in the mail. “It felt that I was something special, that I had made it, that somebody had seen all that hard work I had put in since kindergarten in order for this moment to come.”
Today, he is working to create similarly psychologically powerful moments for college seniors all over California with SB 640, legislation to automatically admit qualified graduating high school seniors – without an application – to California State University campuses with enrollment capacity.
The bill passed the Senate Education Committee unanimously on Wednesday, April 30 and now heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee. It is modeled after West Sacramento’s acclaimed Home Run program, started when Sen. Cabaldon was mayor, which automatically admits all high school seniors, tuition-free, to Sacramento City College.
SB 640 also builds statewide on a CSU pilot program that this year has sent offers of admission to all qualified seniors in Riverside County to a list of 10 campuses. Of the 17,000 students who received offers of admission for the fall 2025 semester, 13,200 completed the required paperwork – a 3,000 increase over the previous year, Sen. Cabaldon noted.
SB 640 takes the direct admissions statewide and makes it a permanent and standardized pathway across the CSU system for high school students. Those who meet eligibility requirements will receive a congratulatory letter of acceptance to a list of CSU campuses with capacity, no application needed. The student can then choose to accept the admission offer and move directly to enroll at CSU.
Experts who testified in support of SB 640 said receiving an acceptance letter can prompt a student to attend college when they otherwise would not – particularly for young people who would be the first in their families to do so.
"Tens of thousands of California students are fully qualified to go to CSU, but don't jump the hurdles of the admissions process,” Sen. Cabaldon said. “At the same time, many CSUs are seeing precipitous declines in enrollment and need more students to sustain their high quality academic programs. High schools and community colleges have the transcript information they need in order to validate that a graduating student is CSU-admissible. Getting an acceptance letter will nudge thousands more to attend and help the CSU system as a whole.”
Under-enrollment is a significant issue on many CSU campuses, including two in Sen. Cabaldon’s Senate District 3: the CSU Maritime Academy in Vallejo – which is in the process of combining operations with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo -- and Sonoma State, which has announced drastic cuts for the coming year.
SB 640 is co-authored by Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, and Assemblymembers Damon Connolly and Chris Rogers. Senator Sasha Renée Pérez, the chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, is being added at her request.