Filed as Assembly Bill No. 2, the California College Promise (CCP) was approved by Governor Gavin Newsom on October 4, 2019, which would waive fees for first-time full-time students for two academic years.
Currently, Long Beach City College offers a similar opportunity for students who have attended a Long Beach Unified School District high school and plan on enrolling soon after graduating.
Through the Long Beach College Promise and Promise 2.0, students are eligible to receive two years of free tuition at LBCC for Fall and Spring terms with access to the Promise 2.0 which guarantees a transfer admission pathway to Cal State Long Beach under 10 majors.
With the state now offering two years of tuition for free, it could potentially allow for further funding by the LBCC foundation to be directed towards other student needs outside of tuition costs.
The LBCC Foundation currently funds student scholarships, faculty and staff programs and other initiatives which include the Long Beach College Promise and Promise 2.0.
The Long Beach Foundation receives money through community donors, estate plan money, and alumni who direct their donations to programs at LBCC they choose to support.
“We’re looking at how to use some of those funds to correct these situations to keep students at school,” said Executive Director of the Long Beach Promise Paul Kaminski on what the foundation’s plans are.
“This year will be giving $450,000, and that’s just this year. It’s all dependent on the number of students in the program,” Kaminski said.
Recently, the foundation has granted students part of the Long Beach College Promise – including those who are disproportionately impacted – eligibility to receive a bus pass using Long Beach Transit transportation services under the LBCC “Strong Beach” Bus Pass Pilot Program for the entirety of the Fall 2019 semester.
Transportation is a barrier many students face, which can prevent them from being successful in school, along with textbooks and access code costs, this creates more obstacles for equal education opportunities.
Even with financial aid being provided, textbook costs alone create unwanted stressors for students who struggle to pay for high-priced books they’ll only use for a semester. But the CCP could potentially allow for funds from the foundation to be directed elsewhere based on student needs.
“Eventually my number one goal would be to partner that great work, in terms of free tuition and free bus passes, with free or discounted textbooks. So we’re working very hard to see if we can come up with a plan to help students defray some of the costs of textbooks,” said President Reagan Romali.
“We don’t have any details on it yet but we’re trying to figure out a way because we know that textbooks are so expensive for students,” Romali said.
Mike Munoz, the Vice President of student support services explained how funding can be allocated from the CCP to further serve LBCC students.
“We have a lot of flexibility on how we want to leverage those dollars so it’s not exclusively just for tuition. We can use some of those dollars for transportation, textbooks assistance, childcare costs, a meal program if we want.”
“At this point in time, I’m thinking probably if there are some leftover reserve funds after we’ve fully funded all our commitments then those funds would be used to help support students with basic needs,” Munoz said.
Although funding for discounted textbooks and other student needs would be a positive for LBCC students, the main focus of the foundation is honoring the commitments they have made publicly like the two years of free tuition and the “Strong Beach” Bus Pass Pilot program.