Orange Coast College is launching its new “Pirates’ Promise” offering free tuition to full-time students for their first year of college.
Students will need to be taking at least 15 units, which would cost about $690 a semester. Students will still pay for their textbooks and other expenses such as student health fees and service charges. The program will only be open to California residents.
Orange Coast College, which is one of the largest community colleges in the county, is the second campus in the Coast Community College District to offer a free-tuition program, which is funded by the state’s California College Promise Grant signed into effect by Gov. Jerry Brown last year. Santa Ana College was the first campus in Orange County to offer free tuition to first-year students – in 2016, ahead of the state program.
“This promise grant is for those students who don’t qualify for full financial aid. It’s someone spending more time studying rather than having to worry about how to pay for college,” Juan Gutierrez, a spokesman for the college, said. “We do hope to see a bump in enrollment, and maybe this is an incentive for students to apply.”
Many more community colleges are now coming on board with their programs; some are creating programs targeting specific populations of students.
Letitia Clark, spokeswoman for the Coast Community College District, said its Coastline Community College launched its program last year which requires students to have graduated from specific nearby high schools to be eligible. OCC’s program is open to all first-year students, but does ease the requirements for students feeding in from those schools for the upcoming spring semester.
OCC expects to be able to pay tuition for about 400 to 500 incoming students before state funds are exhausted for the year, but the college hopes in time the program can be expanded to help more students and include other aid such as textbook vouchers, Gutierrez said.
“The purpose of this and the spirit of the legislation – is to take the burden of finances as much as we can away from students. If you don’t have that burden, then studies have shown you complete college faster and you get better grades,” Gutierrez said. “It’s designed to take some of that burden away, so you can focus on college and start a career or transfer to a university.”
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