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SAN FRANCISCO – According to a University of California review panel, UC outreach programs have made the UC more accessible, but need to be reformed to effectively increase academic opportunity across California.

A report written by the university’s Strategic Outreach Review Panel was presented Wednesday to the UC Board of Regents, which indicates that outreach has increased access to the university for underrepresented students, though greater cooperation is needed between the UC and K-12 schools to help more students prepare for college.

The panel’s chairman, former Wells Fargo chairman Les Biller, said UC outreach should focus on readying California students, especially those belonging to underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, to go to any college. This would change the current practice of using outreach to enhance diversity specifically at the UC.

“What we need to think about isn’t whether kids go to the UC, (but) whether they go to college,” Biller said.

Despite successes of some programs, Biller said in his presentation that an “academic gap” persists between students of different races, and on average, more whites and Asians are eligible for the UC than blacks and Latinos.

This gap, he said, was “unacceptably high.”

The panel’s report indicated outreach programs have increased the number of K-12 students eligible for the UC, and recommended the university specifically define outreach as an effort to aid underrepresented and disadvantaged students.

More substantially, the panel proposed the UC work closer with K-12 schools, community colleges, and the private sector to help more students go to college. The panel concluded outreach programs have not closed the gap because they focus on prospective UC-students, rather than a broader selection.

“You did have goals and objectives,” Biller said. “They were simply the wrong ones.”

Winston Doby, UC vice president for educational outreach, agreed that the way for outreach programs to achieve their goal of increased diversity is to work with local schools to aid students preparing for college – whether or not they plan to enroll at a UC campus.

“If we achieve that more ambitious goal, our diversity will take care of itself,” he said.

But improving education across the state is no simple job, Doby said.

“It won’t be easy, it won’t be quick, and it won’t be cheap. But it is essential,” he said.

The university has maintained outreach programs for over 30 years, and it became the UC’s primary tool to increase diversity after the regents passed SP-1 in 1995, which eliminated the consideration of race in admissions.

Regent Ward Connerly, who sponsored SP-1, said diversity is an important goal for the university, but he disagreed that outreach programs should focus on race.

“We need to stop looking at them as minority kids that are under-performing. They’re kids that are not performing, they’re just kids,” he said.

Though Gov. Gray Davis’ May Revise of his budget proposal released Wednesday did not include any additional cuts for the UC, the financial shape of outreach programs is not clear. The governor has proposed a 50 percent cut in UC outreach, and though the legislature will probably lower this amount, considerable uncertainty remains regarding whether or not the programs will be sufficiently funded.

Biller said after the meeting that cooperation between the UC and K-12 schools is the most important partnership in improving outreach, but Doby said whether they will receive enough money is unknown.

There is “big doubt now,” he said.