Administrative barriers disproportionately affect low-income and first-generation students who are often more susceptible to academic disruption due to campus fee assessments or holds. Bureaucratic procedures in higher education can often have a compounding effect—typically adding to, rather than reducing, administrative processes. The result is often unintended administrative tripwires or barriers experienced by students. One higher education observer rightly noted “...the most difficult thing about college should be the coursework.”
Eliminating these barriers has been identified as a key priority which can significantly and positively impact students’ ability to graduate in a timely manner. It should be noted that the idea of revising drop for non payment policies, for example, is not to ask campuses to forgo revenue or for complete forgiveness of outstanding balances. Instead, it is to assess how existing policies may have disparate impacts or derail academic progress in unintentional ways.
CSUCI is focused on the following tasks:
- Establish an Administrative Barriers taskforce.
- Taskforce to reassess graduation filing process.
- Taskforce to reassess drop for non-payment policy.
- Taskforce to reassess the consequences of existing registration hold categories.