California high school students may eventually have to forget about taking a year or two away from math classes before college.

The Cal State University system — the nation’s biggest public university — is moving toward requiring entering freshmen to have four years’ of math or related coursework on their transcripts.

Current admissions requirements call for only three years of math, but CSU faculty and leaders want to make sure new students keep their skills and avoid forgetting about quadratic equations and the like before attending college.

That can be a problem if students take only three years of high school-level math and take a break from the subject for the year or two preceding college.

“To overcome this, it is much better for us to have a four-year plan for a quantitative reasoning experience,” said Eric Forbes, CSU assistant vice chancellor for student academic support. “It’s just too much of a gap.”

Prospective CSU students who will be high school seniors during the next academic year do not necessarily have to worry about the extra year of math.

It will take years for the recommendation to become a firm requirement – if that becomes official – since CSU administrators want to be sure future enrollees know about such a requirement when they’re in the eighth grade, not in the middle of high school.

And a fourth year of math doesn’t mean students have to take a pure mathematics course. Forbes said the CSU is emphasizing the term “quantitative reasoning” because university leaders want to encourage students to consider taking a class in computer science or another subject in which lessons emphasize applied mathematics.

The University of California, the state’s other four-year university system, advises prospective students to take four years of math, but leaders there are not considering making it a formal requirement.

San Bernardino Unified Spokeswoman Linda Bardere said the district encourages students who want to attend a CSU or UC campus to take four years of math before graduation, but it is not required.

Riverside County Superintendent of Schools Judy D. White seemed skeptical of the proposal.

“This appears to be a proposal that represents a focus on the time a student spends in the seat instead of the critical importance of the mastery of standards,” she said in a statement.

White also doesn’t want to take the flexibility from individual school districts in determining math requirements for their students.

“This should remain a district-level decision based on the reviewing and assessing of student performance data in high school and in college,” she said in the statement. “With student success as the shared goal, we should adopt a more laser-like focus on mastery over time-based requirements.”

She also said schools should align requirements between K-12 and higher education expectations so that students are well-prepared for all postsecondary pursuits.

“As an example, the Riverside County Office of Education recently received an i3 grant (Investing in Innovation Fund from the Department of Education). The grant is aimed at assisting districts with the implementation of a 4th year math course should this be the direction a district decides to pursue,” her statement said.

The grant provides funding for training and support of teachers in collaboration with Cal State San Bernardino and other institutes of higher education and local school districts, she noted.

She does support what Forbes called quantitative reasoning.

“Instead of a mandatory fourth year of mathematics, offering a class that integrates the application of mathematical concepts with other content areas like science or technology would not only enhance critical thinking, but also prepare students for college-level thinking,” her statement said.

A September 2016 report from a CSU faculty committee recommending a four-year math and quantitative reasoning requirement noted that taking more math in high school has a high correlation to college success, and that collegians often wish they had taken additional math courses before entering university.

The movement toward a possible four-year requirement parallels other developments within CSU intended to help students earn their degrees in as close to four years as possible.

Only 19 percent of CSU students who were freshmen in 2011 had a degree after four years.

EdSource reported in March that CSU plans to end no-credit remedial courses by next year, replacing those classes with ones that allow students to advance toward graduation, while also receiving tutoring intended to get them up to speed in a given subject.

Cal State San Bernardino spokesman Joe Gutierrez said many school districts in San Bernardino and Riverside County already are working to ensure that more high schools students will be ready for college.

As part of that, they will have to take more math classes.

“The goal is to speed up the process, so they can graduate sooner,” he said. “If you take the right classes in high school, you are set to go in college.”