Long Beach high school graduates headed to Cal State Long Beach now have an even more affordable option for college—and they’ll still get to call themselves “1949er’s.”
Education leaders on Wednesday revealed the “Long Beach College Promise 2.0,” a program that builds on the original College Promise introduced 10 years ago.
The Port of Long Beach has also joined the partnership officially and will offer internships to students.
The new and improved version encourages Long Beach Unified School District graduates who have been admitted to CSULB a path to take their lower division classes at Long Beach City College before transferring to the state university as juniors.
The first year at LBCC will be free, and Mayor Robert Garcia said the goal is to eventually have College Promise 2.0 students get their first two years free.
“We are investing in our biggest asset,” Sunny Zia, president of LBCC’s Board of Trustees, said of local youth.
LBCC and CSULB have opposite problems: the community college has seen a drop in enrollment over the last decade, but the state university has had a consistent increase in the number of students who want to attend.
CSULB sets records yearly for the number of students who apply to the university. Last winter, more than 102,000 people applied for Fall 2018.
With Promise 2.0, the impaction at CSULB may be relieved while LBCC grows its enrollment numbers, LBCC President-Superintendent Reagan Romali said.
“Students who want to go to CSULB still get to go to their dream school,” Romali said.
To participate in Promise 2.0 for Fall 2019, LBUSD students who are academically eligible must apply to CSULB. Once they’re accepted, they will be offered the pathway of Promise 2.0, where they can get their first year free and take classes at a lower cost. Once the students finish 45 units at LBCC, they can transfer back to CSULB.
Students in Promise 2.0 will go through LBCC and CSULB in a cohort model and there is no limit yet to the number of students who can participate. They will get priority registration, special academic counselor support from both colleges and get an ID card right away from both colleges, so they can still attend events at CSULB.