The promise of free community college

One of my most formative experiences was the time I spent going to Skyline College, the College of San Mateo and Cañada College.

I decided, in my junior year of high school, I would attend community college after graduating, for both cost and application purposes. I never took a standardized test or AP exam that was ever at an average score, and I figured transferring as a community college student was a good way around standardized testing.

I distinctly remember my final days of high school, in my AP government class, how every person in the class shared where they were going to school. Tons of UC Davis, some San Diego, Santa Barbara, essentially all top schools, with only one other student mentioning CSU San Jose, and myself being the only person who was going to community college. No one laughed, but it wasn’t the best feeling. Little did I know what it would yield.

During a transfer day event at Skyline College I chatted with a UC Berkeley coordinator who told me I could get in. It blew my mind. While it wasn’t a guarantee, I learned about the UC’s Transfer Alliance Project that UC Berkeley had with the community college system. If I participated in the program and had a good GPA, I could make it to UC Berkeley. At this point, I didn’t have the best confidence in my GPA. I threw myself into my courses and ended up doing better in my academics than in high school; a 3.5 GPA. Still not the average admissions for UC Berkeley, but not disqualifying. So I built my application around that.

In my second year at Skyline, I co-founded the Model United Nations club. As an officer in the club, I sat on Skyline’s Organization and Club Council, a part of the student government that works to enable the success of clubs on campus. I participated in the then-new Honors Program. At the same time, I was trying to prepare for the expense of a four-year institution.

I was a child of the 2008 recession and I was terrified of debt and loans. I took every measure possible to avoid coming out of college with a huge loan. I spent my summers working as a lifeguard to save for college, I commuted half of the time, I borrowed books from the library, I pre-made my lunches as often as I could and applied for financial aid when I had the time.

While significantly cheaper, by the end of my two years, I had still spent about half of what I saved up in high school, and I struggled to win financial aid. I was in what was called the “middle class trap”: a family “making too much” to qualify for significant financial aid, but not enough to cover the costs of education. That was 2012-2014. The cost of higher education has only gotten worse since.

At the end of the day, I was able to transfer to UC Berkeley and earn my four-year degree, from a top university I was never really sure I could get into or ever afford.

When we think of policies that help create equity, promote anti-racism and enable education achievement, this is it. The promise of reduced or free community college goes to the real heart of public education: lifting people out of poverty; helping students to shape their futures; creating careers that are both satisfying, and productive for their community.

Community college enabled my success in life, but I spent a lot of time trying to reduce my costs. Now we can provide that solution to so many more students without the economic burden, or loss of time. How many barriers did we remove? How many futures can we unlock? I look forward to finding out.

Alex Melendrez is an organizing manager at housing nonprofit YIMBY Action, Democratic Party delegate and a community college graduate. The views expressed are his own.