Many of Virginia's public high school students aspiring to enter college are failing to enroll in an academic (or college preparatory) program, and the incongruity between academic preparation and aspirations is far more common among blacks than whites. This disparity can be inferred from a recently concluded study of 1980 high school seniors. Less than 58 percent of black seniors planning to attend a public four-year college were enrolled in an academic program of study, a proportion far lower than the white students' ratio of 79 percent. This meant, of course, that only half of the black seniors in Virginia that year could even hope to apply to selective colleges and universities. Equally obvious is this fact: the better the institution a college student attends, the better the employment and professional opportunities open to him or her. Further, inadequacies in the students' academic preparation are likely to influence their performance in college.

Virginia has 39 state-supported institutions of higher education. Some of these institutions have an open admission policy whereby all who apply for entrance are admitted. And so, many of the 1980 high school seniors with general or vocational training were able to enter college in the fall without further academic preparation. Yet, despite the Commonwealth's intention to make college accessible to everyone, a smaller proportion of black than white 1980 high school seniors who completed an academic high school program entered college.

The issues of the academic preparedness of Virginia's