College Success

South Bay

Expand existing program

Although we are not applying for a collaboration grant, OJS believes that collaboration is key to providing the best services while maximizing our resources. We have long standing partnerships with the Long Beach Unified School District and The City of Long Beach. For over 10 years, we have partnered with California State Universities at Long Beach, Dominguez Hills and Northridge who provide us with the master’s level social work interns that provide our mental health services, in 2014 Simmons College became a partner in this program. For more than a decade, we have been active in the Southern California College Access Network (SO CAL CAN). Since 2016, in partnership with All Ways Up, we have secured VISTA volunteers each year to assist us within our development and program departments.

OJS is witness to the ongoing unmet need for college access programs and services for middle school, high school, and college students in Long Beach. Our organization seeks to improve and change the lives of promising youth from Long Beach’s most disadvantaged and underserved neighborhoods, that have a dream to attend and graduate from a college or university. The students enrolled in OJS are among Long Beach’s most vulnerable and are representative of the educational crisis facing the state of California. Although the graduation rates have significantly improved in Long Beach for our population, many who graduate are not properly prepared to pursue a college education. As evidenced by recent results of the 2017 California Assessment of Student Progress Test, less than 30% of economically disadvantaged 11th grade students in Long Beach meet or exceed expected standards in English and only 8% score proficient or advanced in Math (California Department of Education, 2018).

The College Success program addresses the needs of low income, first generation college students. In 2010 the program served less than 20 students, in the 2019-2020 academic year we served 146 students. Our expansion goal is to increase the number of students served to 300. The program uses a two-fold approach to assist our vulnerable students as they work towards the goal of a college degree. The first is to fully prepare current high school students for challenges they will face gaining admission and preparing to begin their college education and to support them throughout this stressful process. Once college admission is obtained, the program is there to provide individualized case management to meet the specific needs of each college student. Our students outperform other students of similar socioeconomic backgrounds in their attendance at four-year colleges immediately following high school, their college graduation rates and their overall persistence rates in higher education.