Academic, Financial Planning Open Doors to University Success

On a recent Saturday morning, dozens of volunteers from Cal State Northridge--administrators, faculty members and students--joined with other groups to go door-to-door in the northeast San Fernando Valley to make home visits to hundreds of sixth- and ninth-graders.

The Walk for Success, sponsored by the federally funded Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams), of which CSUN is a part, was to encourage youngsters in low-income areas to work hard on their schooling and to let them know that college is possible if they and their families plan ahead.

That too was the message that I and several hundred other U.S. college and university presidents proclaimed recently during the first-ever National College Week. To mark the event, CSUN hosted a series of student recruitment fairs and outreach efforts to local schools promoting college awareness.

Why are we doing this? One reason is that increasingly, completion of a college degree is necessary for entry into the mainstream job market. And despite a great expansion in recent decades of college-admission rates, some groups have not yet shared equally in those advances.

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Two main themes for parents and future college students to consider in preparing for higher education are academic preparedness and financial planning. The earlier parents and young people begin working on both, the smoother the pathway to a college education will become.

Let’s look at academic preparedness. As writing and math placement test results for incoming freshmen to the California State University system show, graduating from high school with a good grade-point average and acceptable test scores does not guarantee college success. Parents and young people need to become familiar with the patterns of college preparatory classes required by universities. By doing so, students can start early to take the right courses to prepare them for higher education: four years of English, advanced mathematics and similar offerings.

Also, young people need to understand early that university studies can require very different kinds of study habits, learning skills and other talents from those they learned in high school. We hear that over and over from “good” students who suddenly find themselves having trouble in college.

The message for parents and young people is clear: Students, start preparing for college early and strive to master the basic skills needed for academic success. Parents, make sure your children have satisfied the typical patterns of preparatory classes required for college and university admission.

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That’s the academic side of the equation. Then there’s the financial side. According to a recent national survey, a huge majority of Americans--71%--believes that a four-year college education is no longer affordable for most people. That feeling was shown to be particularly strong among first-generation college families and minority and low-income groups.

Amid media reports of the yearly cost at some pricey institutions reaching that of a new luxury car, the public perception is understandable. But the broader reality of college affordability--and it’s particularly true in California--is something else.

The Cal State system, of which CSUN is part, has not increased the annual state university fee charged students since 1994, and that fee has decreased by 10% overall during the past two years. Now $1,428 per year, the CSU fee is less than the average university fee for every other state. Students in the CSU system pay less than one-fifth the cost of their education, with the state paying 70% to 75%. Yet recent reports suggest that California residents think the cost of attending a Cal State university is about twice the actual cost.

So another part of such outreach efforts as the Walk for Success and National College Week has been to remind the public that higher education remains affordable, and to not let misunderstandings about the cost deter qualified students from pursuing their studies.

As the only public university in the San Fernando Valley, we at Cal State Northridge have a keen interest in fostering the growth of today’s youngsters into tomorrow’s community leaders. Helping youngsters find the path to higher education is an essential part of that journey.