With a failure rate of nearly 40 percent, the California State University Writing Proficiency Exam may be seeing changes in the years to come.

Sacramento State WPE Coordinator, Jonathan Price said that in the future the WPE would aim to become a qualifying exam to enter into a major.

“In theory, there will be a more direct link to the students major. Journalism majors will have different writing proficiency tests than engineering majors and so on,” Price said.

Students who have already taken the test would not be subject to the new requirements.

California State University rules require students subject to degree requirements of catalogs subsequent to take the writing proficiency exam by the first semester of their junior year.

The exam requirement, enacted in 1977 by the CSU Board of Trustees, was a response to complaints by employers that college graduates were entering the workforce without writing skills.

The most recent changes made to the exam were in 1992.

Sac State senior Daria Young said that although she passed the test, she would not be in favor of the change.

Young said that it would concern her that she may be expected to write on something that she studied as a freshman and remembered nothing about.

“The test already presents you with controversial issues that are common knowledge to write on, based on your opinion,” Daria said.

The cost for the test is set at $25, an amount that was capped as maximum in the tests origination.

Price said that the bulk of the test fees go toward paying proctors and people to grade the tests, with less than $2.50 going to school cashiering.

Price is also in charge of hiring the graders and the proctors. He said that they include a range of college professors from statistics, to biology and English.

“They spend an hour in training, for each exam. Every exam is graded at least twice, the graders put their anonymous score for the exam down, and we compare the two. If the two scores conflict, we have a third person grade it,” Price said.

In order to see any changes in the exam, the faculty senate must adopt the idea.