An outreach program that targets first-generation college
hopefuls at some of Los Angeles County’s public high schools
may face significant budget cuts next year, and counselors are
saying this will hurt diversity at UCLA.
Budget cuts would reduce the funding to outreach programs like
the Early Academic Outreach Program, and limit access to the
resources needed to reach students in the Los Angeles community,
said Debrah Pounds, director of UCLA’s EAOP.
Ingrid Casteneda, a senior at Los Angeles High School, has been
mentored by UCLA students since her sophomore year. This month
Casteneda was accepted to UCLA, in large part because of the
mentoring she received through the EAOP, she said.
But the fortune of many other Los Angeles County high school
students like Casteneda may be jeopardized if proposed budget cuts
occur.
Gov. Gray Davis has proposed as much as a 50 percent funding cut
for the EAOP, Pounds said.
“If it is 50 percent, of course that is going to be
devastating to us,” she added.
In the greater Los Angeles area, UCLA’s Early Academic
Outreach Program has been effective in helping underprivileged high
school students obtain the qualifications to enter the UC system.
Often these students are admitted to UCLA.
Dennis Furlong, a college counselor at Fairfax High School in
Los Angeles, said UCLA students are at Fairfax four days a week,
talking with students about the requirements.
“This program gets kids at a young age and talks to them
about the opportunity of going to college. For a lot of kids, no
one has even sat down and told them that,” Furlong said.
The program helps college counselors reach the students at often
overcrowded high schools throughout Los Angeles.
“I’m the only college counselor for over 4,000
students,” said Linda Atkins, a college counselor at Los
Angeles High School.
Atkins said the program has been a tremendous resource for the
students of Los Angeles High, and that it does help minorities who
are underrepresented in the UC system enter UC schools.
“The reinforcement they get from the EAOP makes it more
real to obtain the goal of becoming a college graduate,” she
said.
The program helps students by instructing them on the core
requirements for the UC almost immediately upon entering high
school.
Julia Pelikhova, who said the EAOP helped her get into UCLA when
she was at LAHS, now works as a Bruin Advisor ““ mentoring
high school students ““ at LAHS and Marshall High School.
Pelikhova said all the students she mentors are strong students,
but because there is no culture of college attendance in their
family, they are not informed about what it takes to get into a
university.
“Without us, they will probably never hear it,” she
said.
Furlong and Atkins both said budget cuts would hurt the ability
for students at their schools to go to college, thus reducing the
diversity at UCLA.
Pounds said cutbacks in funding would translate into reduced
staff, and a decreased ability to serve the high school
community.
“It becomes a domino effect,” she said.
Other programs, such as Student Transfer Outreach and Mentor
Program, go to community colleges and equip students with
information on what it takes to transfer to UCLA, said STOMP
co-chair Lester Baron.
STOMP focuses on community colleges in poorer areas, and without
adequate funding, STOMP will have less ability to reach students
who would not otherwise be prepared to transfer to UCLA, Baron
said.
“Diversity will definitely be hurt by budget cuts,”
Baron added.
Even with the current outreach efforts done by UCLA, some
community members think UCLA needs to do more to help minorities
who are underrepresented in the UC system.
“UCLA needs to do more in the inner city,” said
Richard Chavez, principal of Centennial High School in Compton.
Chavez said he cannot remember UCLA ever doing outreach at
Centennial. He added that the colleges and universities who do
outreach at a certain school, are more likely to draw students from
that school.
When Chavez began his tenure at Centennial, he formed a
partnership with UC Irvine, where Irvine students would mentor his
students in the way UCLA has done in other areas around Los
Angeles.
He said since UC Irvine began outreach at Centennial, enrollment
numbers for his students at Irvine have increased from five to
about 20.