How does Cal Poly attract students of color to a majority-white campus?

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The People’s University

A 4-part series on the challenge of diversity at Cal Poly

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Cal Poly is getting more diverse, but will the whitest CSU ever look like California?

‘It’s happening to me every day’: How Cal Poly students of color cope with racism, isolation

How does Cal Poly attract students of color to a majority-white campus?

What can Cal Poly do to become a truly diverse campus? Experts have some ideas

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Editor’s note: This is the third in The Tribune’s four-part series called “The People’s University,” examining the challenge of diversity at Cal Poly.

When Jeffrey Armstrong joined Cal Poly as its new president more than a decade ago, he knew the university’s lack of student ethnic and racial diversity was an issue.

At the time, nearly two-thirds of the student body was white, a stark contrast to California’s diverse population.

Although Cal Poly remains the whitest public university in the state, through a set of targeted initiatives, the university has boosted its share of non-white students.

The number of underrepresented minority students (those who are not white or Asian American) newly enrolled at Cal Poly as freshmen has nearly doubled from 624 in 2009 to 1,102 in fall 2021. That increase is primarily driven by Hispanic or Latino students, as the number of Black, Native American and Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students enrolled as freshmen has either decreased or risen very little in that same time frame.

The number of white and Asian American students newly enrolled has increased more: rising from 3,284 in 2009 to 3,786 in 2021, university data show. Asian American students account for most of the increase, although white students account for the bulk of this group.

Cal Poly officials say a critical key to improving the university’s diversity is getting students who apply and are accepted to actually enroll.

In university analytics, the measure is called yield.

“We found that not the only, but the biggest factor influencing Cal Poly’s diversity was the yield of low-income students, who are majority-minority in California,” Armstrong said in an interview with The Tribune.

So, the university has focused most of its attention on the issue by funding programs and initiatives to help students make the leap from interest to commitment.

How Cal Poly recruits diverse students

Before it can even get prospective students to that decision point, however, Cal Poly begins by reaching out so they know the university is an option.

Terrance Harris, Cal Poly’s vice president for strategic enrollment management, shared broadly that the university works to “encourage students from all walks of life to even apply.”

“There’s a lot of work done to identify opportunities to engage with students, their community and encourage them to be applicants to the university,” he said.

Harris said Cal Poly’s efforts to recruit a diverse pool of applicants have largely been done through recruitment at its “partner schools.”

These include nearly 570 high schools around the state that are primarily campuses with high populations of students who qualify for free or reduced meals, according to Harris.

Exactly how they go about recruitment, however, remains a bit of a trade secret. When asked for specific details on how Cal Poly recruits students, university officials were unwilling to share specifics.

“This is a key priority for the university, as we endeavor to serve the state of California and prepare all of our students for success in today’s global workforce,” Matt Lazier, the university’s director of media relations, told The Tribune in an email.

“Speaking generally, recruitment of students is a competitive process among universities,” Lazier said. “Because of this, detailing all elements of Cal Poly’s student outreach and recruitment approaches could put the university at a competitive disadvantage in our effort to attract prospective students.”

In another follow-up email, Lazier wrote that Cal Poly’s recruitment process has seen “several modifications and refinements to strategies over the years to bring in a class that is highly academically qualified as well as diverse and inclusive.”

Programs bring prospective students to campus

One key step in the recruitment process is providing marginalized students with the opportunity to experience Cal Poly in person, using a few programs designed specifically to bring them to campus.

The university has programs such as Educational Talent Search and Upward Bound — both federally funded pre-college, outreach programs targeted toward students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Beyond that, the university has some summer programs — such as Engineering Possibilities in College — but for that attendees must pay a hefty fee of up to $1,850. Scholarships for the program are available but “very limited,” according to the program’s website.

PolyCultural Weekend — a student-led program in which prospective students spend a weekend touring Cal Poly and getting a glimpse at college life — helps many find a community on campus before fully committing to the university.

The program focuses on showcasing different cultures and demonstrating to students from diverse backgrounds that there can be a home for them at Cal Poly.

The students who run the program say it’s pretty much a full-time job on top of their school duties. But, it’s also worth the effort, they say.

“The majority of their concern is that Cal Poly is a PWI (predominantly white institution),” said Lizbeth Guzmán Villanueva, a fifth-year industrial engineering student who helps run the program. “Where will I find my community? Where will I find my support?”

“That’s the whole purpose of PolyCultural Weekend,” she said, “to showcase that and to show them, you know, we are here for you. Yes, we’re a small community, but we’re really a strong community.”

Cal Poly uses three key programs to attract diverse students

Three main programs at Cal Poly serve underrepresented minority students: the federally-funded TRIO programs, the state-funded Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) and Cal Poly Scholars, which is funded by out-of-state-student fees.

TRIO and EOP have been around for decades. They were founded out of the Civil Rights movement to help historically disadvantaged and underrepresented students overcome economic and social barriers that prevented them from getting a college education.

Today, the programs continue to serve and support those students at Cal Poly and thousands of universities and colleges nationwide.

The programs provide support in the form of scholarships, grants, housing, cultural events, counseling and more.

The third retention program, Cal Poly Scholars, was created by Armstrong in 2012.

It was, as he still says today, his most dramatic move to address diversity issues at the university, as it focuses on ensuring low-income students who are accepted to Cal Poly have the financial means to enroll.

Students in the three programs told The Tribune they were grateful for the support they received and it kept them from dropping out. As first-year students, they were required to live on campus, typically with the other students in the programs — creating bubbles of diverse communities, students said.

And typically students in Cal Poly Scholars, EOP or TRIO met their first friends at the university through the programs, received valuable counseling from staff running the programs and felt supported in their academic journey.

“If I wasn’t in Cal Poly Scholars, I think I would have still struggled. I would have struggled more,” said Selina, an undocumented, first-generation student who preferred to go only by her first name. “I probably would have dropped out just because you need that support system. You really need it.”

Cal Poly Scholars is funded almost solely through out-of-state student fees. Non-California-resident students who attend Cal Poly finance the program by paying an additional fee on top of tuition and other university fees.

Out-of-state freshmen who first enrolled at Cal Poly for the 2021-22 academic year had to pay $6,030 on top of the $11,880 tuition price.

That so-called “opportunity fee” has gone up over the years since new out-of-state students first had to pay the extra fee in 2019.

The opportunity fee, which will be capped at $8,040 per year, mostly pays for Cal Poly Scholars students’ university fees, but also goes to student support and advising, as well hiring of tenure-track faculty “with an emphasis on diversity,” according to the university’s website.

Scholars are certain in-state students automatically added to the program upon admission to the university. The students are selected for Cal Poly Scholars primarily because they fit into a low-income bracket and may go to one of the university’s “partner schools.”

“We have not found another way to significantly grow diversity at Cal Poly in a Prop.-209-compliant manner other than something like Cal Poly Scholars,” Armstrong said. “TRIO and EOP won’t do it. ... We have very few tools to impact diversity because of Prop. 209.”

Proposition 209 is the 1996 voter-approved proposition that ended affirmative action in California and prohibited universities such as Cal Poly from considering race or ethnicity when selecting students. When asked, Cal Poly officials commonly refer to Prop. 209 as being a major hurdle that has prevented the university from more substantially altering its diversity since it was enacted.

University data show that Cal Poly Scholars, TRIO and EOP largely appear to achieve their purpose of improving the university’s diversity.

This year, the number of Cal Poly Scholars totals 790, with 54.4% of them identifying as Hispanic or Latino, 23.2% as Asian, 14.8% as white and 0.9% as Black.

Of the 258 students in TRIO at Cal Poly, 56.5% are Hispanic or Latino, 18.49% Asian, 12.67% white and 3% Black.

And for EOP’s 663 students, 83.2% are Hispanic or Latino, 15% Asian, 0.8% white and 0.1% Black.

At Cal Poly, the Scholars program is the only one of the three actively open to accepting outside donations.

Cal Poly doesn’t have any similar fundraising mechanism for TRIO or EOP, so the programs’ limited staff are left to their own devices to try to make do with the government funds or find outside grants to help the students afford the university.

Because of limited state and federal funding, TRIO and EOP students typically receive much smaller scholarships or grants to help them afford Cal Poly’s fees or tuition. Some of those program students, if they are from out of state, still have to pay the hefty opportunity fee for Cal Poly Scholars.

By taxing out-of-state students and accepting donations, Cal Poly Scholars has a budget of more than $1.35 million currently, and that’s expected to grow as the opportunity fee rises.

In contrast, EOP was allotted about $562,100 from the CSU’s Chancellor’s Office for the 2021-22 academic year.

And TRIO Achievers at Cal Poly was awarded a five-year federal grant renewed in 2020 that provides about $344,400 annually to the program.

Nearly all of the federal funding for TRIO goes to salaries, program operating costs and other expenses. The university occasionally gives a few thousand dollars to the program so some students can receive extra scholarships.

The university has recently proposed a significant increase in its college-based fees to provide it with more funds for financial aid for low-income students. College-based fees are added fees students pay on top of tuition, and they differ by whichever college within Cal Poly a student attends.

Should the proposal move forward, students enrolling in Cal Poly during the 2022-23 academic year will need to pay between $614 and $864 more in college-based fees than current students. That fee amount increases each year through the 2026-27 academic year for a total increase between $2,561 and $3,591 more than current students, depending on the college.

Students whose families earn less than $150,000 will receive enough financial aid through the increased college-based fee system to offset any increase in fee costs as well as provide additional funds to ensure Cal Poly is affordable, Armstrong said.

“Those who are given more, who have more income, pay. And those who do not, pay, but have it offset,” Armstrong said. “We’re trying to level the playing field for our financially needy students as well as make sure that we grow our academic quality and learn-by-doing capabilities.”

Making the university more affordable to low-income students will likely increase the university’s ethnic and racial diversity, Armstrong added.

Armstrong said he knows that TRIO, EOP and Cal Poly Scholars are all important to the university — but noted that the Scholars program is the one the university is focused on growing.

“It’s not a matter of one being better than the other,” he said. “It’s a matter of focusing resources to impact yield.”

To help secure students’ commitment to the university, Cal Poly Scholars receive scholarships right off the bat, once they are accepted, while EOP and TRIO scholarships come after the student has enrolled.

But university data obtained by The Tribune show it appears that Cal Poly needs to work on more than just yielding students who are accepted.

And experts say there are additional avenues the university should take to increase the number of non-white students who apply, and then to better ensure those students feel welcome and supported on campus.

Coming tomorrow: While Cal Poly initiatives have made a difference in campus diversity, data show the university is still accepting white students at a higher rate than non-white groups. Here’s how that could change.

This story was originally published February 24, 2022 at 5:00 AM.

Mackenzie Shuman

The Tribune

805-781-7844

Mackenzie Shuman primarily writes about SLO County education and the environment for The Tribune. She’s originally from Monument, Colorado, and graduated from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in May 2020. When not writing, Mackenzie spends time outside hiking and rock climbing.