How do we make sure that all talented students, regardless of background, have access to the highest-quality education possible?
We’ve learned through the years that passively waiting for them to arrive at college isn’t nearly good enough. America’s universities must do a better job of reaching out beyond campus borders and into the greater community. We must get to these students years earlier.
For many years now, Orange County has been a living laboratory, exploring the impact of having a leading research university build relationships with students in middle schools and high schools.
We wanted to know whether it is possible to raise the ambitions and accomplishments of students who might otherwise miss a chance at a first-rate education.
The results have been amazing.
Valley High School, for example, was the lowest-performing high school in the county in 2010. Working with the Santa Ana Unified School District, UCI in 2011 created a special preparatory academy there, called Anteater Academy. Students are invited, but importantly, their parents also participate. Working with donors such as Henry Nicholas, we have provided special tutoring and advisement to the program’s students.
The result? Well, our Anteater Academy graduated its first class of 72 students last year. Before the program started, UCI saw no more than five Valley High students a year admitted to our campus. We have increased those numbers by more than 700 percent. And 50 of the students – more than two-thirds – were admitted to at least one UC campus.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. We send UCI students and staff into low-performing high schools throughout Orange County. We also bring students from those schools to the campus – to live in the dorms, take classes and imagine themselves as future Anteaters.
Of the 1,304 seniors who came through these programs last year, more than 80 percent passed the full set of courses required for admission to UC and Cal State. That’s double the statewide completion rate. And almost 90 percent of them head to college.
UCI’s Santa Ana Partnership – which includes the Santa Ana School District, Santa Ana College and Cal State Fullerton – has helped thousands of Santa Ana students aim for a college education since 1984. Students in the partnership program who attend Santa Ana College are guaranteed admission to UC Irvine if they maintained at least a B-plus average.
Last September, this program, which served as the model for similar UC partnerships throughout the state, won a $5 million state award for educational innovation. Of that, $1 million will fund scholarships for Santa Ana College students to transfer to UCI.
And once they get to UCI, they thrive.
According to the most recent New York Times rating of colleges as centers of upward mobility, UC Irvine ranked No. 1 in the nation. About half of our new students are Pell grant recipients, meaning their families generally earn less than $70,000 a year. Of those, 89 percent graduate within six years.
Beyond the impact on these students, why is this work important?
On a practical level, it’s a thrifty investment in the future of our county, and the country. These students are emblematic of the demographic shift in the nation’s population. Their education is vital to a robust economy.
Making their college education not only possible, but almost a certainty, goes a long way toward leveling the educational playing field. Elite higher education can either be part of the problem – mostly educating the privileged – or it can be a powerful engine for social mobility in a country where opportunity is a national ideal.
Howard Gillman is chancellor and professor of law, political science and history
at UC Irvine.
