Before DEI/affirmative action was reemphasized in California 15 years ago or so, Long Beach was already a leader in degrees to lower socio economic groups. I believe in one year we received recognition as conveying the most degrees to minorities and/or 1st of their family to go to college nationally.

A huge portion of this goes to the fact that we are the CSU of Local Preference for many historically lower socio economic areas that have high minority representation. West/North Long Beach, Compton, Bellflower, Artesia, Downey, La Mirada, down the 405 into OC.

That is why our admission profile remains below many other universities, and we still have a huge commuter cohort. We don't just take the top applicants. The local preference criteria states that the applicant must meet the CSU minimum standard to come in undeclared, and then they can apply to impacted majors once they show ability in GE classes. It's a great path for many people.

Further, we have many other programs based on socio-economic and disability to get people in. Beach Pathways and BMAC for example.

The UC system has a similar local preference, but it's based on a benchmark GPA requirement based on individual high school results. A student has to be in the top 9% of their class as a base qualifier, then has other requirements as well.

The CSU system provides a much more attainable goal for local students, therefore a good upward social mobility score would be the result. We have done this for decades.

Of note, our STEM majors have higher requirements than the State wide CSU levels.