California's schools, colleges, and universities have made strides toward gender equity in sports, but only about 8 percent of the state's community colleges have satisfactory participation rates for men and women, and university athletics staffs have large pay disparities among male and female coaches, according to a new report.

The report, "Title IX Athletics Compliance at California's Public High Schools, Community Colleges, and Universities," analyzed intercollegiate participation rates by gender for the 2002-3 academic year.

It found that although women account for 54 percent of enrollments at community colleges, they make up only 35 percent of students who participate in intercollegiate sports there. The report notes, however, that the participation rate for women has improved since 1992, when it was 31 percent.

Some 43 percent of university campuses have female sports-participation rates that are "outside the range of acceptability," the report says. Acceptability is defined as participation rates that are within 5 percentage points of enrollment for each gender.

Additionally, the report found that at the university level, the average salary of head coaches of men's teams was $63,321, compared with $49,307 for head coaches of women's teams. "If men's team head coaches earn more because they have more experience or qualifications, then women's teams are at a disadvantage because their coaches are less qualified," the report says.

Operating and recruiting expenditures differed widely as well, with expenses for men's teams ringing up at an average of $658,395, compared with $459,933 for women's teams.

Members of the California Postsecondary Education Commission are scheduled to meet today to discuss the report's findings. The report's author, the RMC Research Corporation, in Portland, Ore., is asking the commission to adopt the report and to take appropriate action. Murray J. Haberman, acting executive director of the commission, said he expects the report to be formally adopted.

Joanne A. Fortunato, commissioner of the California Commission on Athletics, called the findings disturbing but not surprising, given the state's dire budget situation.

Many of the report's recommendations call on the Legislature to require greater oversight of college athletics programs, Ms. Fortunato said. But it falls short in not asking the Legislature to provide the colleges with financial resources to help solve the disparities, she said.

The report also recommends that university-system offices monitor compliance statewide and that they provide more training to coaches and athletics administrators.

Betsy Stephenson, associate athletics director at the University of California at Los Angeles and a member of the report's advisory committee, also said she was not surprised by the numbers presented in the report, but added that she found them to be not very compelling. She said she had hoped the report would delve into campus culture in an effort to "get our arms around something deeper than what Title IX numbers will get you to." But ultimately, the report is simply "more of the same," she said. "We all probably already knew this to be true."