In a handful of California school districts, the class of 2014 will face a higher bar to graduate than the classes that came before.

At Abraham Lincoln and other high schools in the San Francisco Unified School District, freshmen will be required to pass a full suite of courses that will prepare them for college, even if students don't plan to pursue higher education.

Principal Barnaby Payne said the new district-wide requirements give students more options.

"We want to put students in the position where at the end of their high school career, they're going to be able to decide," said Payne. "That we haven't decided for them whether or not they're going to college, that we're going to give them every opportunity to accelerate in their learning so that they can have choices upon graduation."

To graduate, students will need to take 15 classes that include three years of math up to advanced algebra, four years of English and two years each of science and a foreign language. The courses are necessary for admission to the highly competitive University of California system as well as California State University schools.

Students and parents like Ernestina Jara say they like the change.

"I think it's a good idea as a freshman to instill in them at the beginning that you have to think college material, you have to think you're going to college, that yes, college is where you want to go, right after school," said Jara.

Jara was at Lincoln High to pick up her freshman son. She says she regrets that only one of her three older children pursued college and suspects that sometimes Latino students like her kids aren't pushed toward higher education.

Eliminating that bias is exactly why many want schools to adopt a college-bound curriculum for all students.

"I was told 'Why go to college? You're going to get married and have kids anway,'" said Patricia Roach-Martinez, an elementary school teacher and board member of the Eastside Union High School District in San Jose.

She says that the misperception that most Latino and African-American students are not college-bound still persists.

"I think we've had a system in education that has tracked students of color into what's expected of them to achieve," said Roach-Martinez. "And that has been a huge issue, and it continues to be an issue."

Eastside has the highest enrollment of high schoolers in Northern California and is looking to adopt the college-prep curriculum. It will be following the example of districts like San Francisco and San Diego Unified, which also adopted the college-bound curriculum this year.

But not everyone is on board.

Sue Kenney teaches high school in San Francisco Unified and worries about the college-for-all message:

"'You have to go to college or you're not going to amount to anything.' And I don't like
that because everybody is not going to go to college, everybody can't afford to go to college."

Kenney says classes such as metal shop, music and arts have been dropped as schools focus on the college-prep curriculum.

State lawmakers have twice rejected proposals to adopt a statewide college-prep curriculum because many felt it was important to preserve vocational and career training.

But at Lincoln High, freshmen students like Tatiana Collins, hanging outside the school after classes, said they didn't mind the more rigorous graduation requirements.

"Because you're going to know what they're going to want from you in college, you're
going to have an idea what you're going to do, and what classes you should take and stuff like that," said Collins.

The 15-year-old said she doesn't plan to go to college right after high school but says the new curriculum will prepare her well in case she changes her mind.