Ryan Nelson: Graduating low-income students must be a goal for Brown

Gov. Jerry Brown wants to give California’s education system an extensive makeover. Last week, Brown outlined attempts to overhaul the California educational system, an effort he hopes will reduce what he sees as an increasingly visible “two-tier society.”

Brown’s most recent efforts began earlier this month, when it became public that the governor wanted to tie increased funding to an improvement in the four-year graduation rates of the University of California and California State Universities.

Brown continued his legislative battle last week, promising lawmakers the fight of their political lives if they attempted to dilute his K-12 education bill that would allocate more money to low-income school districts and provide them with more autonomy.

If Brown is serious about transforming California’s educational and socioeconomic culture, then he has to streamline his message about equalizing treatment beyond elementary and high school and bring that charge to the state’s university systems.

Brown should shift his higher education emphasis away from an overarching, factory-like degree program to using existing funds to support universities that graduate higher rates of low-income students. In this way, Brown can ensure that the most qualified students are attending and graduating from our universities. As the old adage states: quality over quantity.

Enhancing the ability of the UC to retain low-income students and providing additional financial aid programs could help facilitate the social mobility Brown promotes.

A recent study stated that low-income, high-achieving students aren’t applying to selective colleges at anywhere near the rate of their financially wealthier counterparts.

A 2011 California Budget Project report found that while the income gap has continued to widen over the past decade, a college degree was the most effective way to move up the social ladder. According to the New York Times, there is now a 45 percent difference between rich and poor students graduating with college degrees.

Certainly, the UC offers a healthy amount of financial aid to students and has enrolled many students receiving aid in recent years – in 2010, nearly four out of 10 UC undergraduates received Federal Pell Grants. The issue, in this case, isn’t necessarily one of access, but of retention.

A good benchmark for determining the graduation rate of low-income students is the rate at which Pell Grant students finish their degrees. Though the information on recent Pell Grant recipient graduation rates for the entire UC system is currently unavailable, select data from UC San Diego about the class of 2009 indicates that four-year graduation rates were 15 percent lower than those that received no aid: 47 percent compared to 62 percent.

At UC Irvine, there was a 6 percent discrepancy in four-year graduation rates between those who received federal aid and those who didn’t for the class of 2011.

The six-year graduation rates at most schools were more even. Still, this is clearly an area in which Brown can fulfill his goal of increasing four-year graduation rates while addressing the issue of social mobility.

One area of focus is retention programming. For example, at UCLA, the Community Programs Office has distinct retention groups that target specific student populations and help them through peer counseling, internship opportunities and mentorship.

Another option is to pump more money into the Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan, which provides aid for students from families making less than $80,000 per year.

By expanding efforts to graduate low-income students, Brown can reduce inequality while still adhering to an outcome-based funding model.