Posts By: Amanda Ufheil-Somers
Bold Leadership Working for Community College Students
Today, the vast majority of California’s public school students are from low-income families or from populations historically underrepresented in higher education—including Latinos and African Americans. These students are the face of California’s future. However, these students face significant barriers in their pathway to Read more >
Grantee Spotlight: Q&A with Lande Ajose, Executive Director of California Competes
College Futures Foundation provides support to a number of policy groups that are focused on improving college opportunity and outcomes for low-income and underrepresented students in California. Our grantee partner California Competes is committed to making the education-to-employment pipeline work for more Californians. Read more >
Out of the Dark: Bringing California’s Education Data into the 21st Century (2018)
For some students, the path from education to employment is a direct line from high school to college enrollment to a job. But for most students, the path is winding or broken. To significanly increase the number of Californians with postsecondary degrees and Read more >
Money Left on the Table (2018)
While the skyrocketing price of college tuition has been discussed at length, less time has been spent examining the additional costs that students often have to bear, like food, rent, books, and transportation. The federally funded Pell Grant helps financially eligible students focus Read more >
California Community College Students Missing Out on Nearly $130 Million of Financial Aid Each Semester
Affordability is a major barrier keeping students from pursuing higher education. While the skyrocketing price of college tuition has been discussed at length, less time has been spent examining the additional costs that students often have to bear, like food, rent, books, and Read more >
Choosing Our Future 2.0 (2018)
Fresno Unified School District has made profound improvements since 2004 when most its schools had academic performance ratings in the bottom 10% of California and was in jeopardy of fiscal takeover by the state. Even with drastic growth in graduation rates, there remain Read more >
Left Out: How Exclusion in California’s Colleges and Universities Hurts Our Values, Our Students, and Our Economy (2018)
California’s public colleges and universities are among the best and most diverse in the nation. Student demographics lone would qualify many of our colleges and universities as Hispanic Serving Institutions and Asian, American Indian, Pacific Islander Institutions, meaning they have a significant representation Read more >
Opportunity Imbalance: Race, Gender, and California’s Education-to-Employment Pipeline (2018)
Despite California’s growing economy, the state is home to the highest poverty rate in the nation, and the chasm between richest and poorest is wide and deep. Income disparity is one significant driver of this paradox, and one that greater access to meaningful Read more >
Bed, Books, Meals & Cell Phone: New Study to Tally Real Costs of College in California – EdSource
By Larry Gordon What does it really cost California students to attend college? An ambitious new survey of about 100,000 students is about to attempt to answer that question, with a special emphasis on housing, food and transportation costs. Reaching out to public Read more >
California Universities Require Nearly $50B in Construction in Next 5 Years – Nonprofit Quarterly
By Steve Dubb California universities face potential “construction and renovation expenses approaching $50 billion over the next five years,” reports Mikhail Zinshteyn in EdSource. Zinshteyn notes that this was the conclusion reached by the College Futures Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that promotes greater Read more >