Video: Pathways to College Completion in the San Joaquin Valley

California's San Joaquin Valley (SJV) has the lowest college enrollment and completion rates in the state, which both reflects and perpetuates the region's economic challenges. Yet it could be on the verge of dramatic improvements. How can institutions, educators, and policymakers expand support for its college-going pathways? Last week, PPIC senior fellow and director of the Higher Education Center Olga Rodriguez presented new findings and led a discussion with valley higher education leaders to answer this question.

"The single largest obstacle for SJV youth is the transition from high school to college," Rodriguez said. "The second is the transfer from community college to four-year institutions." She stressed that districts with the best outcomes have expanded access to dual enrollment courses and made the A-G coursework needed to qualify for California's public four-year colleges an integral part of high school curricula. Even so, only 39% of valley high school graduates complete the requirement.

Most SJV high school graduates who go on to postsecondary education start out in community college, but their transfer rates are 5 percentage points lower than in the rest of the state. "Parents and students in the valley see a college education as a key to a brighter future," Rodriguez said, "including greater career and economic opportunities. Ensuring they have access to the information they need is critical to their success."

Tressa Overstreet, Fresno Unified School District's executive director of college and career readiness, agreed. Citing the importance of introducing college and career readiness well before ninth grade, she said, "We need to spend time with our families and our youngest students, to develop the mindset that I am college material." To facilitate student success, Fresno Unified made A-G its default high school curriculum, expanded access to dual-enrollment courses, prioritized data, and last year added transition counselors. "We have a full department focused on monitoring and meeting the needs of every student," Overstreet said. "This year our students earned over 12,000 credits through dual enrollment."

Asked what advice she had for students, Orquidea Largo-associate vice chancellor and chief outreach officer at UC Merced's Center for Educational Partnerships-said that improved policies and procedures have rendered today's students more aware and assertive than in the past. But more needs to be done to ensure they arrive at high school academically well prepared, with a sense of where they are going. "I want to remind them we are working for them. It is not an inconvenience to approach their teachers, their counselors, their principals and declare what path they want to follow and how they expect our educational system to support them in pursuing their college aspirations."

Benjamin Duran, executive director of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium, addressed the challenge of improving transfer rates. As an example, he talked about the Central Valley Transfer Project-a collaborative effort between his organization, valley community college and California State University (CSU) campuses, and UC Merced. Among other improvements, an associate degree can now qualify students for the region's public four-year colleges. Duran is especially excited about the Pathways Mapper application. "We think it's going to have a huge impact on the transfer numbers we already see," he said. "Youngsters involved are transferring at greater numbers than those seeking their own pathways."

All the panelists pointed to data sharing as an essential aspect of such collaboration. Largo emphasized the importance of real-time district-level data in making adjustments to policies and practices that might be creating barriers for students. Overstreet agreed, noting that data is essential not only to building Fresno Unified's master schedule but also to monitoring student progress in such a way that interventions can be made. She emphasized the need to break out of silos of all kinds: "We truly believe we are stronger together. This is going to take a community lift, to shift our regional socioeconomic status. Our students deserve pathways to hope."