Cerritos, Compton Colleges Join Effort to Boost 4-Year Transfers

Cerritos and Compton colleges are two of 19 community colleges selected to participate in a $3.3-million, three-year pilot project to increase the number of students, especially minorities, transferring to four-year colleges and universities.

Cerritos and Compton have each received first-year state grants of $90,000 to establish information centers for students interested in transferring to four-year institutions. The Cerritos center opened Tuesday and the one at Compton is expected to begin operating Aug. 19, which is the beginning of the fall semester for both colleges.

“There has been a great deal of concern that community colleges haven’t been doing a good job of transferring students (to four-year schools). There’s always been controversy,” said Ronald Dyste, administrator of student services programs for the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.

“This program grew out of a generalized concern about transferring students and particularly the intolerably low (transfer rate) of minority students,” Dyste said, adding that Gov. George Deukmejian has made a three-year commitment to the program.

1 Million Students

With a 1984 community college enrollment of more than 1 million statewide, only 5,257 students transferred to the University of California system and 30,134 to the California State University system, according to California Post-secondary Education Commission statistics.

Only 3.3% of the students transferring to the UC system were black; 6.4% of the students transferring to the CSU system were black. Nearly 10% of the students transferring to both systems were Latino, according to the data.

In 1984, Cerritos College officials estimated that 850 students, of 7,000 who indicated they intended to transfer, actually transferred to four-year colleges or universities. The total college enrollment was 18,485 for 1984. Black student enrollment for the year was about 5%, or 933, while Latino student enrollment was 20%, or 3,794.

Of the 850, only 48 transferred to the UC system and 481 went to the CSU system, according to the post-secondary commission data. Fifteen percent, or 7, of the students going to UC were black, while 17.5%, or 8, were Latino. On the other hand, 2.7%, or 13, of the Cerritos students transferring to CSU were black, while 22.4%, or 107, of the transfers were Latino.

And what happened to the other 321 students the university believed had transferred to four-year schools?

Will Help Keep Track

“I can’t really say. They might have gone on to private institutions,” said Olive Scott, vice president of instruction and assistant superintendent of Cerritos College. “This is why the pilot project is so important. It will help us keep track of students. We will be able to keep them from falling through the cracks.”

Compton had a 1984 enrollment of 4,533 students, of which 73%, or 3,507, are black and 11%, or 474, are Latino. Four students from Compton transferred to the UC system and 100 to the CSU system in 1984, according to the Postsecondary Education Commission data. All four going to the UC system were black, and of the 100 going to the CSU system, 83 were black and 5 were Latino.

“Because of limited research data and a lack of staff and money it has been difficult to determine who actually transferred,” said Warren Washington, director of guidance and records for Compton College. “With this program we will be able to track them through (the entire time spent at the community college). It will almost be like taking them by the hand and leading them.”

No goals have been set as to how much of an increase the program hopes to create, but “everybody is committed to getting the numbers up, particularly minorities,” Dyste said.

The program is important to both schools, administrators say, because they believe it will not only increase the number of students transferring to four-year schools but will prepare them better academically to complete the four-year school.

“Getting to the four-year school is one thing; staying there is another,” said Wayne Rew, director of student services and counseling at Cerritos.

Here are some of the features of the program:

- It will enable the colleges to keep track of students and make sure they are taking the correct transfer courses.

“There are instances where students meet general education requirements but do not take the correct courses to enter a specific department of the university or college they are transferring to,” said Scott of Cerritos.

- Officials from four-year institutions will visit the centers to monitor the progress of students wishing to transfer and make sure they are taking the correct courses for transferring.

- Each semester, tours of four-year schools for potential transfers will help eliminate what Washington called “the shock that can come with transferring.”

- High school students will be allowed to visit the centers and receive counseling, even if they intend to attend colleges other than Cerritos or Compton.

- Academic tutoring and counseling on course selection will be available.

- Workshops on topics such as financial aid, housing and placement tests will be provided.

Each selected college chose a UC institution, a CSU school and a private school to work directly with its transfer center.

Cerritos chose the University of California, Irvine; Cal State Fullerton and USC. Compton chose UCLA, Cal State Dominguez Hills and USC.

Of 106 community colleges in the state, 65 applied for the grants.