Academic preparation programs boost student success

Carlos Ortiz spends his summer vacations and breaks from Madera High North School working in the fields with his parents, picking cotton, weeding onions, tending grapevines. But that's not the future the 15-year-old sees for himself.

The oldest of six children, Carlos is determined to be the first in his family to graduate from a university. He wants to be an engineer or maybe an architect. With a grade-point average kissing 4.0 and an advanced precalculus class under his belt, Carlos has his eye on UC Berkeley.

What has made him set his sights so high? Since middle school, Carlos has participated in UC's Early Academic Outreach Program.

"Since he's been in the EAOP program, he's had more confidence in himself," said his mother, Amelia Ortiz. "He sees he can have an education. I want him to have choices for his life's occupation. I want him to have some work that's not as back-breaking as what my husband and me have had to do."

Both Carlos and his mother participated in UC's Student Leadership Forum in Sacramento May 12 and 13. More than 200 high school and community college students attended as part of an advocacy effort to highlight the importance of continued funding for higher education, particularly for academic preparation programs. The students were all participants in the Early Academic Outreach Program, the Puente Project or the Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement program. 

After a day of leadership training and presentations on the state budget, students visited with legislators and their staffs to tell them the important role academic preparation programs are playing in their futures. While the proposed state budget does not single out academic preparation for cuts, advocates fear the programs will suffer from the overall cuts proposed for UC, CSU and the community colleges.

"I want the program to be there for my brothers and sisters," Carlos said. "We want them to increase the money, not decrease it."

Research shows EAOP students are more prepared for higher education than non-EAOP students: 72 percent complete the high school coursework required for UC and CSU admission compared with 34 percent of students who don't participate.

Johanna Valle, a 20-year-old student at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, credits the Puente Project with keeping her on track to transfer to a four-year institution.

"Puente helped me academically and personally," Valle said. "I became so close to my English teacher and my Puente counselor. It made me more outgoing in so many ways and taught me leadership skills."

Valle, who wants to major in international business, became vice president of her college's Puente Club and visits an alternative school to tell students about the opportunities higher education can give them. Valle also helps fellow community college students figure out what classes to take to transfer.

For many students in these programs, counselors are the only source of information and guidance to getting into a university, said MESA alumna Mari Gonzalez. If parents don't have experience with higher education, she said, they can't help their children with choosing classes, filling out applications or applying for financial aid.

Gonzalez graduated from UC Berkeley in December and is studying for the MCAT exams to get into medical school.

"My parents are farm workers and have a lot of health problems," she said. "I've seen the wall that exists between them and the health care givers who are suppose to serve them. I want to become a bridge between low-income communities and the health care profession."

Gonzalez is considering enrolling in a post-baccalaureate biochemistry program to boost her chances for med school admission.

"There is no way on God's green earth that I would be doing this without academic preparation," she said.