SBCC
On Friday, April 19, 2024, Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) hosted over 560 South Santa Barbara County high school Seniors for the first ever SBCC Promise Registration Rally. The event provided the visiting high school students the resources needed to enroll at SBCC for the Fall semester as SBCC Promise students. The Seniors were bused in from Dos Pueblos, Santa Barbara, San Marcos, Carpinteria, Bishop Diego, La Cuesta and Alta Vista High Schools.
“We were delighted to welcome new students to our campus,” said Superintendent/President Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D. “Bringing new students to campus, showing them their classes, and having them meet faculty and staff is an important step in creating a sense of belonging and community. We are committed to making SBCC a place where all students are welcome and can thrive.”
“We are grateful to Santa Barbara City College for this partnership. We share a united vision of preparing students in our community to be the next generation of engineers, artists, entrepreneurs and more. Field trips like this help seniors prepare and get excited for life after graduation, and we look forward to seeing the great things the Class of 2024 will do,” said Santa Barbara Unified School District Superintendent Hilda Maldonado, Ed.D.
Once students arrived at SBCC they were welcomed by staff and divided into groups that aligned with their academic interests/majors. They received a warm welcome from Dr. Endrijonas and worked with staff members to enroll for Fall classes. Students received free SBCC t-shirts, resources and free lunch from Jersey Mike’s. Once they were enrolled, they were bused back to their respective campuses. Overall, this effort enrolled over 560 students for the Fall 2024 semester.
“Year round, SBCC Enrollment and Retention Services is at local high schools working with students to see SBCC as an opportunity for them,” stated SBCC Enrollment Services and Retention Director Vanessa Pelton. “We are taking it to the next level by bringing students to our campus and making in-person connections with them. We are grateful for the turnout this year and looking forward to doing this for years to come.”
What is the SBCC Promise?
The SBCC Promise was launched by the SBCC Foundation in fall of 2016 and, since then, has provided over 7,000 students the opportunity to attend SBCC full-time and free of charge for up to two years. Only local high school students from Gaviota to Carpinteria are eligible for the SBCC Promise. By removing financial barriers, the SBCC Promise is making our community’s college fully accessible to all local students who are willing to make the necessary commitments. The SBCC Promise relies entirely on private donations; learn more about the SBCC Promise and how you can donate today.
“The SBCC Promise has made a difference in the lives of thousands of local Santa Barbara students and their families,” shared SBCC Foundation Chief Program Officer Rachel Johnson. “One of the most comprehensive Promise initiatives in the country, this program is entirely funded through the generosity of donors from our community who help make our students’ academic dreams a reality.”
Special Thanks
Thank you to SBCC staff and faculty for volunteering their time to make this effort a huge success — especially SBCC Enrollment & Retention Services, Admissions & Records, Academic Counseling, and Dual Enrollment. Additional thanks to SBCC Foundation staff, Santa Barbara Unified School District (SBUSD), Carpinteria Unified School District Staff, Jump on the Bus, and Jersey Mike’s for their support of this program.
This is a great program. My only wish is for it to be funded with our tax money, why does it need to by funded by donations? Where are the states priorities?
Agreed, CitizenSB. One of the top priorities should always be education. Allowing that to sit on the back burner only damages our society in the long run.
Yes, but decreasing education increases con voters.
No, no one mentioned a “certain curriculum” nor did anyone bring up DEI issues. YOU DID. 100% YOU.
So again, ask yourself: why did you start ranting about learning about the struggle of others in college on a thread that has nothing to do with that?
Oh wait, you answered already: “call me a bigot….”
Bigot. Also, if you think people should be learning how to read and write in college, then you might not understand what higher education is all about. College level course are exactly where people should learn about history, and not just what Texas and Florida want to teach, but what actually happened.
Learning about others that were born differently than you and the history of their struggle is critical to becoming a decent human being. As you can see by many of the comments online about that, we’ve failed. Tremendously.
Sac – is English not a college requirement nowadays? Funny, a couple years ago it was for me. I don’t know what college experience you had, but yes, reading and writing is still gen Ed at most institutions curriculums.
It’s possible to take those classes as dual enrollment but still very much required by colleges.
Never said we should only teach “Florida or Texas” history (insert banjo twangs for Sacs bigoted, dramatization of everything conservative having to do with Texas or Florida) but teaching history should be separate from politics that liberals decide need addressed.
I am a STEM major, and that includes my time at Dos Pueblos. DPEA. I luckily avoided the main wave of needing to tolerate ridiculously non-academic curriculums by about a year.
Once again, call me what you want but don’t act all high and mighty while you decry all conservatives based on simple disagreement over ideologies and how we want our children raised.
“everything conservative having to do with Texas or Florida”
And what exactly are those? They’re the demonization of the values of the Enlightenment, of secularism and the rights of women and minorities, the enactment of theocratic and autocratic policies, attacks on labor and the working class, attacks on and denial of science, the use of xenophobia and racism to mobilize support for these thuggish right wing pols, etc. ad nauseam.
Bigotry is indeed an ideology.
And if your education had actually taught you anything, you would realize how history and politics are entwined. It is people with your political ideology who are using their political power to suppress the teaching of the history of racism and the other bigotries you swim in.
English yes, reading (what YOU said) should have already been taught by the time you’re in college. Learning about others and taking a critical and more advanced view of history and doing more than just “the basics” is what college courses should be about. No one is forcing you to learn about racism in bio-chem or mechanical engineering class, so spare us the sobbing.
Think on this. Why are you so against DEI (presumably what you’re crying about) being taught in college that you highjacked this thread that had nothing to about it and no one mentioned it just to complain and cry about having to learn about the struggle and history of people other than yourself? YOU started the rant out of nothing. That’s sad.
You and “Anon” mentioning how education of a certain curriculum leads to less conservative voters is interesting, I hardly “highjacked” anything.
I guess it’s ok to vote liberal if it’s a case of peer pressure / closed doors if you don’t.
Pretty bigoted if you ask me.
Bigot.
“The SBCC Promise has made a difference in the lives of thousands of local Santa Barbara students and their families,” shared SBCC Foundation Chief Program Officer Rachel Johnson. This is an understatement! Increasing the availability of higher education goes against the tides of soaring college fees and SBCC is a high quality school.
An important point, however is that this is not just a SBCC program, it is a California program, and there is even a 4-year CSU Promise program available. Folks can find out which colleges are participating here:
https://www.calstate.edu/apply/freshman/getting_into_the_csu/pages/the-california-promise-program.aspx