Select Cuesta, Hancock students can get a Cal Poly degree without leaving their campuses
Local community college students have a new pathway to obtaining a Cal Poly degree — and they can do so without changing campuses.
This fall, around 20 transfer students from Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria will begin pursuing their bachelor’s degrees in sociology through Cal Poly, as part of a new partnership that aims to expand access to four-year degrees for local students.
The 2+2 program — named for the two years students will spend at their community college, plus the two spent with Cal Poly — is the first of two planned partnerships, Cal Poly announced in a news release on Sept. 23. The second 2+2 program will launch at Cuesta College in the fall of 2025.
The announcement comes as a statewide audit published on Sept. 24 found that Cal Poly has the lowest rate of transfer student representation of all the CSU campuses.
The audit found that for academic years 2018-19 to 2022-23, just 18% of incoming students at Cal Poly were transfers, far below the CSU average of 53% and the statewide goal of 33%.
New programs will serve sociology majors, future teachers
Cal Poly’s 2+2 partnerships are aimed at removing barriers to higher education for local students who may not be able to move or commute to the San Luis Obispo university, or who may not be able to participate in a traditional college schedule.
Students located in Santa Maria who are interested in transferring to Cal Poly may not be able to move to SLO or commute regularly to campus, according to Terrance Harris, vice president for strategic enrollment management at Cal Poly.
The 2+2 program allows these students to continue their studies on the Allan Hancock campus — but they’ll still be taught by Cal Poly faculty, who will either commute to Santa Maria or teach virtually.
For the Cuesta program, Cal Poly plans on orienting classes toward working professionals and other students who may need to attend classes outside of traditional school hours.
Both programs are also aimed at filling gaps in the local workforce, Harris said. The Hancock program will help students seeking careers in the sociology field, and the Cuesta program will serve future teachers and educators.
Harris said Cal Poly worked with both communities to identify local areas of need.
”This is an opportunity for us to together address needs of our communities,” Harris said. “And that’s an important part of stewardship of place and the intentionality that we have as a campus, of being ... attentive to what’s going on in our local community.”
But Allan Hancock President Kevin Walthers said the new program will address just a fraction of the need in Santa Maria.
“It’s great for 20 students, but we have hundreds of students that need access, and they need access to something other than sociology,” Walthers told The Tribune. “We need liberal studies so we can have elementary school teachers. We need public administration or administration of justice programs that could serve our local municipalities and county. ... A basic business degree is needed.”
Cal Poly is the closest CSU campus for students in Santa Maria, but this year, it had room for just over 9% of transfer applicants.
And factors like tuition costs, housing and relocation costs, family responsibilities and jobs can prohibit transfer hopefuls from seeking higher education elsewhere.
“If our students can’t get into Cal Poly, where are they supposed to go?” Walthers said.
Officials from Cal Poly hope the partnership will continue to expand.
“We have long had a connection with these two community colleges, and they have been main feeder schools to our campus for quite a while,” Harris wrote in an email. “These new programs are a focused effort to address specific needs that are present today. This is a direct and purposeful partnership and we will continue to look at opportunities to serve our community in partnership.”
To be enrolled in the programs, students must meet a set of criteria determined by Cal Poly, which includes completing an associate degree of transfer (ADT).
Cal Poly tuition does apply to the program, but students can apply for financial aid, according to Cal Poly’s website.
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