Policy Advocacy
We sponsor and support common-sense reforms so that more students can access college and complete their education
Our Priorities
Campaigns and Initiatives
Campaign
Affirming Equity. Ensuring Inclusion. Empowering Action.
This month, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to announce a decision on race-conscious admissions at public and independent colleges and universities. While we do not know the outcome of this decision, we know that equal opportunity for ALL Americans – particularly for Latinx, Black, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, and American Indian/Alaska Native students who have been historically excluded from higher education – is essential to our multi-racial democracy and economy. Regardless of the Court ruling, federal, state, and college leaders have the responsibility to leverage all the tools and policies that help advance racial equity in higher education and do not take us back to an era of exclusion in higher education.
Campaign
Transforming Transfer
A convoluted transfer system has delayed and denied many community college students from earning their bachelor’s degrees for years with disparate impacts: only 9% of Black and 10% of Latinx community college students are supported to transfer after four years. Historic transfer reform policies are paving a student-centered pathway. Join us to call upon higher education leaders to ensure full fidelity in the implementation of these critical policies.
Campaign
Equity in College Placement
For decades, the unfortunate reality at the California Community Colleges was that more than 75% of incoming students were assessed as not college ready based on their performance on questionable standardized tests and were placed into remedial math and/or English classes, derailing students from their college goals. Thanks to landmark equitable placement policy, students are empowered to enroll in the transfer-level courses that maximize their success.
Campaign
Expanding and Protecting Financial Aid
College affordability poses a significant barrier to many students, especially Black, Latinx, and low-income students, from seeking to achieve their college dreams. Currently, only 14% of Latinx and 27% of Black Californians are supported to earn a bachelor’s degree. At a time when California is facing a major degree and workforce shortage, the state must expand college access which can be achieved by fully funding the Cal Grant Equity Framework.
Campaign
California Undocumented Higher Education Coalition
Approximately 100,000 undocumented students are enrolled in California’s public and independent colleges and universities. Learn about our efforts through The California Undocumented Higher Education Coalition to ensure that all students in the state gain the opportunity to obtain an affordable college education in their pursuit of the California dream, whether documented or not.
Campaign
Student Centered Funding Formula
For too many years, a broken funding model has failed our students by providing funding to colleges based only on how many students they enroll without ensuring these same institutions had additional resources for serving low-income students and equally prioritizing student success, improving outcomes, and closing equity gaps. That is changing with the Student-Centered Funding Formula, shifting to a model that provides funding based on equity and student success.
Campaign
Preserving Access to the CSU
Driven by claims of improved student retention and completion outcomes, the California State University (CSU) Chancellor’s Office introduced a proposal in 2019 that would have required first-time freshmen applicants to complete an additional year of Quantitative Reasoning (QR) in high school as a condition for admission. We rallied with a coalition of over 100 state, business, civil rights, community organizations, school boards and administrators, along with 500 students across California, to successfully stop the proposal.
