Nearly three in five California State University freshmen have to take a remedial English or math course. They arrive on campuses like San Jose State unable to do college-level work.

That situation partly reflects the language barriers facing a new generation of immigrants. But it's also an indictment of the high schools that hand out B's like pieces of bubble gum. And it wastes money: Parents or students fork out tuition money for courses that don't count toward a college degree.

At a time of scarce resources, the CSU system coughs up $30 million a year -- the equivalent of what it costs to educate 3,000 full-time students -- for remedial courses.

The CSU system has vowed for a decade, without success, to cut the remediation rate. Now, with the help of the State Board of Education, it is doing something innovative -- and smart -- about it.

It has devised a way to notify students whether they need to spend their senior year in high school boning up on the basics. Going one step further, it has designed a curriculum, along with a three-week teacher training program, that high schools can use to help students fill in the gaps. Rates of remediation -- stubbornly high for a decade -- should begin to fall.

The first step has been taking place over the past month in high schools across California, where high school juniors have been taking annual California Standards Tests. Those interested in attending a CSU campus will be asked to answer 16 additional math and English questions.

And, for the first time, they'll do a writing exercise, which CSU English professors will grade (perhaps as many as 100,000 essays, all in one marathon weekend). By August, students will learn the results.

Using K-12 student assessments as the placement exam for a statewide university system makes obvious sense, but California will become the first state to do so. It has taken years -- and the persistence of David Spence, executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer for CSU -- to get CSU and the state Department of Education bureaucrats to work together.

Until now, there's been a disconnect between the skills that the CSU system demands and what high schools teach. As a prerequisite to admissions, CSU demands that students pass a minimum number of courses, achieve a B average and rank in the top third of a graduating class.

But even with these requirements, CSU has found that too many students don't write well, can't read critically or perform the math they purportedly know. Each year, CSU has notified every high school of the remediation rate of its graduates -- to no avail. Many students slump their way through senior year, unaware of what they don't know.

Now the message to students will be clear and early, and the responsibility for preparing students for college will be where it should be -- with those who hand out diplomas.

STUDENT COMPETENCY, BY THE NUMBERS

Every high school that sends more than five students to California State University campuses receives an annual report on the students' competency to do the work.

This chart covers public and private high schools in Santa Clara County. The first column tells the number of students who entered CSU colleges in the fall of 2003. The second column gives the percentage who were proficient in math. The third column gives proficiency in English.

For example, of the 29 students from Mountain View High who entered CSU last year, 86 percent were proficient in math but only 45 percent in English. CSU's goal is to increase the rate to 90 percent by 2007.