Gov. Jerry Brown signed the “Long Beach College Promise Act,” Monday, validating a higher education pledge signed by Cal State Long Beach President F. King Alexander, Long Beach City College President Eloy Ortiz Oakley and Long Beach Unified School District Superintendent Christopher Steinhauser in 2008.
The bill, SB 650, authorizes LBUSD to partner with the Long Beach Community College District (LBCCD) to provide “an aligned sequence of rigorous high school coursework” that would put participating students on a track towards completing college coursework before they graduate, according to a report in the Long Beach Post.
The Long Beach College Promise offers educational benefits such as free tuition for one semester at LBCC, guaranteed college admission to CSULB, early and continued outreach from the fourth grade through college, and “various college pathways” based on personal situations and interests.
In addition, the LBCCD Board of Trustees will be authorized to track and prioritize students in the program and give them benefits such as priority enrollment and class registration at the city college.
“This bill will give our institutions more flexibility to ensure that our students are adequately prepared to enter higher education institutions and to transfer in a timely fashion,” Oakley said in a joint statement with Steinhauser.
“SB 650 will allow our schools to further implement the Long Beach College Promise, a nationally recognized collaboration with our community college and state university,” Steinhauser said
Both the LBCC and LBUSD sponsored the bill, which was authored by Sen. Alan Lowenthal.
“We are extremely thankful to Senator Alan Lowenthal for his leadership,” Oakley said.
The legislation has been touted as a supporting act for the Long Beach College Promise, a component of the Academic & Career Success Initiative approved by the LBUSD in September 2007.
The LBUSD website says the Long Beach College Promise seeks to provide all LBUSD students the opportunity to receive a college education.
Engineering student Alex Ortiz said he thought the passage of the bill will help future students at Cal State Long Beach. Ortiz was part of a higher education tracking program called the Mesa Engineering Program (MEP) and said that it helped prepare him for his future.
“I was in MEP and that really helped me,” Ortiz said. “It really started getting us into the industry, like we went to companies and we got to speak to real engineers and it gave you kind of a feel like, ‘okay this is where I’m going to be in five or six years.'”
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