College Among Transfer Leaders

Ventura College is among the top community colleges in the state for successfully sending students into the University of California and Cal State University systems, according to a report released last week.

The study, from the California Post Secondary Education Commission, shows Ventura College in the top 20% of community colleges in the state for students who transfer into the UC system.

It is in the top 33% of the state’s 108 community colleges for transferring students to the Cal State system. And the college is among the top 10% for sending Latino students into the UC system.

College officials hailed the study as evidence that outreach efforts to bring in a diverse student body, as well as the hiring of Spanish-speaking teachers, have paid off.

“There are several factors to explain the data,” said Jeff Ferguson, a college officer who deals with transferring students to four-year schools. “One obvious factor is the demographics are changing considerably, and that’s reflected not just in the general population but also in student population.”

The college has a student population of about 12,500, of whom about 34% are Latino.

College spokeswoman Alisa Sparkia Moore said the institution has tried to increase Latino representation, especially at its east campus center in Santa Paula, where 65% of the student body is Latino. The campus offers general-education courses and high-technology classes, along with bilingual counseling services.

In September, the east campus received a $2.1-million federal grant to boost the educational performance of Latino students. The money was targeted at improving performance in so-called gateway courses, such as algebra, pre-calculus, accounting and English composition. The campus, which does not have a library, will also receive a new learning and resource center.

Ventura College also serves a higher percentage of students with disabilities than other local community colleges, Moore said.

“We have 1,000 students with disabilities, and we are known as being the most adaptive place for disabled students among local community colleges,” she said.

Transfer statistics for Moorpark and Oxnard colleges were unavailable because officials are on winter break. But Ferguson said Oxnard College will probably have lower transfer rates because it has fewer students and Moorpark’s rates should be higher because it is larger and a quarter of its students live in Los Angeles County--closer to four-year universities.

Ferguson said that given the relatively small population of Ventura College compared with community colleges in Santa Monica and Santa Rosa, with about 25,000 students each, its placement in the study is remarkable.

“Based on our numbers, we shouldn’t be doing so well, especially without a four-year college in the county,” he said. “We transfer more students than most California community colleges even though 50% of the [colleges] have enrollments greater than Ventura College.”

Ferguson said that in the Cal State system, the first choice of Ventura College graduates is Cal State Northridge. In the UC system, it’s UC Santa Barbara.

Other popular destinations include UCLA, UC Davis, Cal State Chico, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and San Diego State.