College Transfer Students Targeted

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation will announce today that it is joining eight high-ranking universities, including USC and UC Berkeley, in a $27-million effort to help recruit and retain low-income community college transfer students.

Together, the universities and foundation hope to banish the notion that a top-tier institution is beyond the reach of low-income students.

The Virginia-based foundation is donating a total of $6.78 million to be divided among the schools. USC will get $901,739, while Berkeley will receive $1 million.

Each university also will contribute to the project; $3.75 million from USC and $1.1 million from Berkeley.

The schools have pledged to help 1,100 transfer students receive bachelor’s degrees by 2011, said Joshua Wyner, the foundation’s vice president. Of those, 480 will be from Berkeley and 75 will be from USC.

When students are asked why they selected a community college over a four-year institution, academic ability is not often mentioned, Wyner said. Proximity to home or low costs are common answers.

The number of low-income community college students transferring into top-tier universities is declining, Wyner said. Top-notch universities typically focus their attention on high school seniors.

Only 10% of students at the top 146 highly selective colleges come from the bottom half of the socioeconomic scale, foundation officials say.

USC will do its part by joining Los Angeles Trade Tech College and East Los Angeles College to create the SCholars Club. The organization will target high-achieving students who -- with a bit of financial aid and faculty guidance -- could thrive at USC, said Judi Biggs Garbuio, associate dean for academic recognition and scholars programs.

Students from the two colleges earning at least a 3.5 grade point average will be invited to a banquet each semester at USC, where they can learn about the school from the faculty. Interested students will then be guided, step by step, through the application process.

Once admitted, SCholars will be assigned faculty coaches and can attend special educational seminars to augment their coursework. As they approach graduation, the focus will shift toward the future with sessions on job preparation and applying for graduate school.

Only nine students transferred from Trade Tech to USC last year -- an embarrassing figure considering the two campuses are about a mile apart, said Ramon Castillo, Trade Tech’s vice president of student services.

Although many community college students view the doors of public universities as wide open -- Berkeley accepted more than 2,000 transfers in the last year -- the same students see private institutions as exclusive and pricey, Castillo said, so they don’t bother applying.

To attend Trade Tech full time for one year costs about $650, plus books. Two semesters at USC totals about $31,000.

The foundation will evaluate the program’s effectiveness through a study of the 1,100 transfer students, Wyner said.

“We hope other colleges and universities will notice that they don’t have to sacrifice quality on their campuses to emulate these programs,” he said.

The other schools receiving grants are Amherst College, Bucknell University, Cornell University, Mount Holyoke College, the University of Michigan and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.