Funding Key to Unlocking a Better Future

I keep reading in the local press about “Tidal Wave II,” the anticipated flood of students who will enroll in our state’s colleges in the next decade, and the phrase conjures up a frightening image for me.

I am a retired university official who spent her career clarifying federal and state financial aid policies so staff could determine student eligibility for awards. I started out at UCLA, moved to the chancellor’s office of the California State University system, and spent my final 10 years as associate director of financial aid at Cal State Northridge.

Everywhere I went, I saw the same thing. Some kids get to college, surfboards in hand, financially speaking. And others head off for campus without even a swimsuit. They may be at the beach, but their feet are stuck in sand. Send a wave crashing their way and they’re swamped.

For far too many California youth, college is an insurmountable financial wave. Even if students have been successful in high school, they can’t afford college tuition, books, transportation or room and board. If they’re working, the money helps support families. Financial aid is the only answer.

But send a wave of students toward the doors of the campus financial aid office . . . and only a trickle will make it through. The money just won’t be there for the scholarships, grants, loans and work-study jobs needed. Students will have no choice but to give up on their college dreams.

I saw firsthand the importance of scholarships, particularly at CSUN, where so many students need every penny of financial aid they can locate to make it through. The image is clearest when I think about Ratina Burris. We met when she was a work-study student in CSUN’s scholarship office.

Ratina is a lovely, intelligent, hard-working black woman. She and four siblings grew up in separate foster homes in the inner city. From seventh through 12th grade, Ratina took the bus to schools in the San Fernando Valley, where she excelled and became motivated to go to college.

On scholarship and work-study for three years, Ratina’s senior year scholarship at CSUN came from a fund I had established. As a result, she and I talked often about her career plans. “I need to get a job when I graduate,” she told me, “but I want to go to law school later on.”

Ratina got that first job, at TRW in Redondo Beach, and quickly moved up the ranks. She also served for two years on the board of directors of a nonprofit group that gives foster children the transitional support they need to move from foster care to independent adulthood.

Because she enjoyed the corporate life, Ratina decided to go for a master’s of business administration rather than a law degree. Again, someone helped: UCLA’s Linda Baldwin, who encouraged Ratina to participate in the Riordan Fellows Program, funded privately by Mayor Richard Riordan and by other sources to encourage students to pursue MBAs. Ratina decided to attend the University of Indiana, and accepted its offer of scholarships, part-time work and summer internships. In May, she earned her MBA, and I received an invitation to her graduation, along with a note saying, “I know you can’t come, but I wanted to invite you anyway.”

Well, I went. I felt like the proudest parent in the crowd when I watched Ratina receive her degree--and prouder still when she told me she’d been offered a fabulous job at Hewlett Packard in Silicon Valley. Ratina Burris is going places. And she’s on her way because people reached out and helped her.

When I think about what those scholarships meant to Ratina and then visualize that tidal wave of students at CSUN’s financial aid office doors, I despair. With college costs increasing exponentially, and with the number of needy and deserving college prospects doing the same, I must assume that more and more young people won’t be able to get the education they need.

Unless we all do one thing: support our colleges and universities. Contribute to your local college’s scholarship fund. Encourage your employers to do the same. When my husband passed away, I established a scholarship at CSUN. When I retired, I added to that fund. Today, four CSUN students receive scholarships every year from the Chilstrom Fund. You can do the same thing. You don’t need to be wealthy. You just need to care.

If you expect your junior colleagues, your new employees, to show up at work ready to surf the waves that will confront them, you’ve got to be part of the solution. You’ve got to furnish them with the surfboard they’ll need to conquer the big wave. Do that, and we’ll see the sun rise on a brighter future for all Californians.