As an embarrassed third year student at a junior college, nothing excites me more than getting out and transferring to the school of my dreams. I’ve met with counselors, gone to the transfer center and did research to make sure that I’m doing everything I can do to make it to SJSU as a business major. I’ve heard the horror stories of geographic impacting with the CSUs, which have discouraged me from my dream schools.

During my first year at DVC, I met with counselors to make sure I was making the right choices for my future. Upon letting my counselors know I was a business major, I got many comments that encouraged me to attend Cal State East Bay as opposed to SJSU. Although they were only warning me, the fact that counselors thought I couldn’t get into SJSU was discouraging, with comments like, “They have only accepted 20 business students last semester,” and, “Students in the Santa Clara area have priority, so you should apply to CSU East Bay.”

As determined as I was to go to SJSU, the truth behind geographic impacting is a reality. For students to work hard at their GPA only to have a minor factor such as location to be a deciding factor is as unfair as affirmative action. With our tax money being spread out to fund all CSUs evenly, students should have as even an opportunity to attend all 23 campuses. However, if our tax money just funded local universities, giving an advantage to local students would be fair.

I can see how others may view that advantage as students “buying their way into college” but since our taxes our funding these schools, I see it as reasonable. Nowadays with a competitive workforce, it is pretty much required to have a college degree to get a decent job. How are students expected to get a degree in an area of study they feel passionate about when students local to the university are swooping up those spots thanks to geographic priority?

This is something that affects me and I can only hope that it doesn’t hold me back from getting into my dream university.