Thirty-one California colleges and universities now carry an official title that didn’t exist two years ago: Black-Serving Institution (BSI). It’s a state-level designation, separate from historically Black college or university status, meant to recognize campuses that are making real progress—or promising to make progress—on Black student enrollment, retention, and graduation. And unlike a lot of institutional labels, this one comes with a public scoreboard attached.
The designation was created by Senate Bill 1348, authored by California State Sen. Steven Bradford and signed into law in September 2024. It’s the first program of its kind in the country. A California college qualifies if at least 10% of its student body is Black, or if it enrolls at least 1,500 Black students. Colleges must submit an application that includes a five-year strategic plan, specific goals for closing completion and graduation gaps, and a certification from the chief administrative officer committing the institution to Black student success. A governing board, chaired by Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, reviews and votes on applications, and the designation is valid for five years before schools have to reapply.
In December 2025, the board approved the inaugural class, which included 25 California community colleges, three California State University (CSU) campuses (Dominguez Hills, Northridge, and Sacramento State), two University of California (UC) campuses (Berkeley and Davis), and Loyola Marymount University—the only private school. Kounalakis, who chairs the governing board, said the effort was a response to a hostile national climate for race-conscious programming.
Campus leaders argue the designation is already changing how they operate, even if the results are mixed so far. At CSU Northridge, administrators point to expanded initiatives like the Black Matador Excellence Experience summer bridge program and a revamped first-year course built around the Black student experience. William Watkins, EdD, the university’s vice president of student affairs, said the recognition reflects years of groundwork, not a sudden shift.
“Being designated a California Black-Serving Institution did not happen by accident, and it didn’t happen overnight,” Watkins said. “It is the result of years of advocacy, scholarship, leadership and unwavering commitment to advancing Black student success here at Cal State Northridge.”
The timing is not incidental. The designation arrived as diversity offices around the country have been dismantled, race-conscious admissions have been barred by the Supreme Court, and federal scrutiny of campus diversity efforts has intensified. But a title is not the same thing as an outcome, and the researchers behind the program have been careful to say so.
In July, Royel Johnson, PhD, an associate professor at USC’s Rossier School of Education, who leads the BSI Designation Research Project, unveiled a public dashboard—now live at CABSI.org—tracking a decade of federal enrollment and graduation data across all 31 campuses.
“Recognition without accountability is merely symbolism,” Johnson said at the dashboard’s launch. “Just being a BSI doesn’t mean that you are succeeding in supporting Black students. It just means that you’ve made a compelling case for what you plan to do over the next five years.”
The baseline numbers explain the urgency. Roughly 44,000 Black students are enrolled across the 31 BSI campuses—about 28% of all Black college students in California. But the dashboard’s enrollment trendline cuts against the celebratory framing. The share of Black student enrollment at these same colleges actually declined from 8.9% in 2015 to 7.8% in 2024, even as the campuses were being selected specifically for their record on Black student success.
The completion and graduation numbers show a persistent, uneven gap. At BSI community colleges, roughly 25% of Black students complete their programs within 150% of the normal completion time, compared with about 33% of all students. The dashboard’s own equity-benchmark analysis—measured against an 80%-of-peer-rate threshold adapted from the state’s disproportionate impact framework—found that Black completion fell below that bar at 15 of the 27 campuses where the Black student cohort was large enough to measure reliably.
The picture varies widely by campus. Some show real progress. East Los Angeles College and Compton College are among those where Black student completion rates now exceed the all-student average. Others show some of the largest gaps in the state—Pasadena City College’s Black student completion rate trails its overall rate by 31 percentage points, and Los Medanos College by 21 points.
Transfer data tells a similar story. Black students at BSI community colleges transfer to a CSU or UC campus at only about two-thirds the rate of their classmates, though that mirrors a statewide pattern rather than something specific to BSI campuses.
Compton College President Keith Curry, EdD, who helped conceive the program alongside Johnson and Sacramento State President Luke Wood, puts the stakes in blunter terms.
“We know that without data, there can be no accountability,” Curry says. “Ultimately, BSIs must strive for nothing less than parity in outcomes for Black students, and that starts at the institutional level.”
Whether that parity arrives is now a five-year, publicly trackable proposition. The designation expires on a renewal cycle, and reapplication requires colleges to show demonstrated progress against the specific goals they set—not just good intentions. Johnson has also recommended that the governing board develop a more rigorous, evidence-based rubric for selecting future cohorts, suggesting even the program’s architects see this first round as a starting point rather than a finished model.
For now, the label is new, the baseline is set, and the question that will determine whether it means anything—did the students these campuses promised to serve actually get better outcomes—won’t have an answer for years.
