Long Beach College Promise celebrates third year

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Budget cuts continue to slash educational opportunities for students all over California. But The Long Beach College Promise has helped to almost double the number of students admitted to California State University Long Beach. Parents and students joined city officials Monday at CSULB to celebrate the Promise's 3-year anniversary.

The Promise provides students a tuition-free first semester at Long Beach City College and gives them greater access to local universities. Just three years ago, only 67 percent of students from the area went to college. Now, 74 percent of students are pursuing education after high school, according to the progress report.

"We're committed to making sure the pathway from preschool all the way to graduate education is as smooth as possible," CSULB President F. King Alexander said.

Alexander added that one of the key steps is to get all the parents in Long Beach involved in their children's education. He said, "Now we can say that college awareness among our parents has skyrocketed through phone calls, through pledges that they've made."

The Promise also offers college campus tours. Fifth grader Arthur Hawkins toured Long Beach City College for the first time last year. He told the audience that while touring the campus, he realized his study habits aren't very different from a college student's.

"For example, I must be an independent worker, organize with a backpack and a planner, take good notes," Hawkins said. "I actually felt like a college student, I wasn't afraid, I felt smart and my dreams of becoming a cartoonist don"t seem so complicated anymore."

The LBUSD serves 86,000 students and is the third largest district in California.

"That's how significant our school district is," Alexander said. "That's the importance of the job that the teachers are doing in getting our students college ready and making sure that each and every child in this school district thinks they can go to college, know they belong on a college campus and is committed to finishing what they start."

The Long Beach promise awarded 27 eighth-grade students scholarships ranging from $50 to $250. The Promise plans to continue pushing for state legislation that gives more money to the program and to the kids it serves.