SAN BERNARDINO — It's tough love at Cal State this year.

The new academic probation policy gives students earlier notice when they fall behind but also makes dismissing them from school easier and quicker.

"You can't just scrape by with Cs and Ds,' said Ray Navarro, Cal State San Bernardino's director of academic services and advising. "Some students stayed on continuous probation for a long time. 'I'm a college student with a 1.5 GPA' that doesn't sound quite right.'

This has become more pressing as the state budget crisis forced the university to curb enrollment growth. Some at the school worried that students who stayed on academic probation for a long time took up space that new, more serious students could use.

"We're in a situation now that students who don't work their way through the university in a timely, efficient way are forestalling other students,' university President Al Karnig said.

About 6 percent of Cal State San Bernardino's 16,126 students were on academic probation last spring. This is right in line with other Cal State campuses.

Like before, students whose GPA falls below a 2.0 are on academic probation.

But the system for disqualifying students from the university has changed. Before, disqualification was determined by grade point deficiency on a sliding scale based on their grade level. Sound complicated? It was.

Now students will be subject to disqualification if they are a freshman with less than a 1.5 GPA, a sophomore with less than a 1.7 GPA, a junior with less than a 1.85 GPA or a senior with less than a 1.95 GPA.

This will become policy at all Cal State campuses. But some are waiting until next year to do it.

At first, Navarro worried a tougher system would push some students out of school. So his office came up with some intervention tools.

"It's a lot more work, but in the long run, it will help keep more students here,' Navarro said.

"I think it will give students an earlier wake-up call. Sometimes people don't realize how bad they are really doing. We show the mirror to their face and help them assess and change things.'

During the first semester, before grades come out, his staff will meet with freshmen who haven't decided on a major about how they are doing in their classes. Undecided students are sometimes less focused on school, Navarro said.

And all students on probation will meet with an adviser to determine the problems and how to solve them. The student then will sign a contract to outline his or her plan to improve grades.

"Anything we can do to get red flags to students and let them know earlier helps tremendously,' Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies Tom Rivera said.

"We need to get them on the right track immediately. Especially with the budget crisis, we need to work harder at keeping our students here and making sure they make academic progress.'

Freshmen and sophomores who are dismissed from Cal State often attend community colleges until they prove they can keep their grades up.

Juniors and seniors can enroll in Cal State's open university. It costs more, but anyone can attend space permitting. And if they re-enroll in the regular Cal State program, the credits they earned in the open university will count toward their degree.

"It's an opportunity to show they can do the work,' Navarro said.

Some universities, like San Diego State, saw the number of students on academic probation drop when they became impacted and, thus, harder to get into. As Cal State San Bernardino continues to curb enrollment growth, this could happen to it also.