Ventura College widens aid effort

Graduating from flipping burgers at a fast-food restaurant to working as a clerk at a drugstore meant a bigger paycheck for 18-year-old Mario Rodriguez. But his bills still made paying for college a squeeze.

So the Fillmore teenager was especially grateful for the financial help he received from the Ventura College Foundation, which provides up to a year’s worth of enrollment fees and other costs to prospective students.

“I needed extra help, because I had just bought a car,” said Rodriguez, who also helps his single mother with the household bills. “If I didn’t have it, it would have been harder for me.”

Hoping to make a college education available to hundreds of recent high school graduates like Rodriguez, who wants to become a radiology technician, the college launched a program this fall called Ventura Promise to assist eligible students. Only 88 students signed up for the program although more than 500 from families with household income of $50,000 or less were eligible.

So last month the foundation’s board voted to remove the income limit and open the program to all 2,700 high school graduates in Ventura College’s service area, which includes Ventura, Fillmore, Ojai, Piru, Santa Paula and parts of Camarillo. The program also is open to general equivalency diploma recipients and students who have yet to pass their high school exit exam.

“This is an attempt to keep kids in school,” said college President Robin Calote. “It’s hard to get back into it after you’ve gotten out of the routine of thinking of yourself as a student. It’s an incentive to stay on track.”

Under the income limit, many of the students who qualified for the Ventura Promise program also were eligible for other financial aid, such as existing state fee waivers and scholarships, which left much of the foundation’s $250,000 in first-year seed money untouched.

Full-time students take 12 to 15 credit units a semester, which can cost $240 to $300, with other fees running about $60. Because the program covers a year of schooling, which includes a summer semester, foundation grants can run upward of $1,000 or more.

“While it was rewarding to see the number of people who signed up, we also anticipated there would be greater use,” said Thomas E. Anthony, vice president of First California Bank in Camarillo and chairman of the college foundation board. “That’s why we lifted the ceiling.”

For Shanice Garcia, a June graduate of Nordhoff High in Ojai, having up to three semesters of fees covered is “really cool, because I’m not that wealthy.” Her goal is to become a pediatric nurse or pediatrician.

A full-time student, Garcia studies algebra, English and psychology. She also plans to play for the Lady Pirates softball team next month.

Her mother, Susan, said the financial assistance program made college possible for the first person in their six-member family. She said the family depends on her husband’s income as a maintenance worker at a private school.

“It’s made a huge difference,” she said. “I don’t know how we would have done it otherwise.”

Enrollment is up at all three campuses in the Ventura County Community College District. Ventura College was up 5.1% this fall to 12,167 students; Moorpark College’s headcount increased 4.8% to 14,360; and Oxnard College grew 3% to 6,447.

A statewide reduction in enrollment fees, from $26 per credit hour to $20 beginning in January 2006 and a new computerized process for making extended payments is expected to make paying for college easier for the district’s 33,000 students.

In the eCashier program, students enrolling and paying for classes online can now automatically choose to make up to four payments.

The cost for the service is $15 per semester.

“It is easier for a student to afford four payments of $75 than having to pay $300 all at once,” said Paul Aries, western regional vice president for Nelnet Business Solutions, the company contracted to coordinate the interactive payment plan.

Extended payments on credit cards and through the financial aid office remain available, but eCashier charges no interest and doesn’t require standing in lines on campus.

After the payment plan gains popularity, the district hopes to expand eCashier services to include the cost of textbooks, said Susan Johnson, district vice chancellor of business and administrative services.

greg.griggs@latimes.com

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FYI

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Contact Ventura College Foundation at (805) 654-6461 or visit the campus website www.venturacollege.edu

For eCashier details, click “Student Central” on the district website: www.vcccd.edu, or contact a student business office on campus.