University of California, Davis
PAE-10: Affordability and Access Programs

The TRiO Scholars Program, also known as Student Support Services (SSS), is a federally funded effort to improve the retention and graduation rates of first-generation and income-qualified students and students with disabilities at UC Davis. Housed within the Student Academic Success Center, the TRiO Scholars Program offers its 160 participants academic, social, personal, and career advising and support from entry into UC Davis until graduation. The UC Davis McNair Scholars Program is a two-year program funded by TRIO and the U.S. Department of Education. It is designed to encourage students from groups often underrepresented in graduate programs to pursue doctoral degrees. About 20 UC Davis undergraduates and incoming transfer students are selected each year to participate in academic year and summer activities The UC Davis Educational Talent Search (ETS) program is a federally funded TRIO program that seeks to assist low-income, first generation students in Sacramento, Solano, and Yolo counties. The goal of the program is to provide services that assist students in completing secondary school and enrolling in post-secondary institutions.

The Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan ensures that eligible California students with an annual family income of up to $80,000 will have their systemwide fees and tuition covered by gift aid.

COSMOS, PROJECT SEED, and the ANSI University Outreach Program engage low-income students in research related careers with faculty mentoring and advising.

College OPTIONS provides in-school academic advisers, informational materials and programs, and educational activities for students, families, educators and communities within Shasta and Siskiyou counties. The focus of the program is to strengthen the college-going culture and to help students and families access post-secondary educational opportunities. Upward Bound helps students generate the skills and motivation needed for college success. Students in the Upward Bound program are four times more likely to earn an undergraduate degree than students from similar backgrounds who so not participate in the program. High school students who will be the first generation in their family to attend college are eligible for the program. It consists of a summer residential component and academic year assistance such as weekly after-school advising, tutoring and special activities by UC Davis student advisers.

The Fiddyment Award, the Chancellor’s Achievement Award, and the Reservation for College (RFC) program were instituted to increase the enrollment and retention of low-income undergraduates.

The new UC Davis GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) will provide regional students and their families with services and opportunities to help students prepare for college and careers beyond. The support will include mentoring, counseling, tutoring and summer programs to foster success in higher-level math and other college preparatory courses. Information about college and financial aid options will also be provided.

The institution recruits students from low-income backgrounds through involvement in several of the programs detailed in other responses to this credit.

Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP), Sacramento Area Transfer Initiative, Transfer Opportunity Program (TOP) create access for economically disadvantaged and educationally disadvantaged students through the freshmen and transfer pathway.

The We Are Aggie Pride program is a student originated and led philanthropy program that receives assistance and guidance from the UC Davis Office of Development. It originated when a group of students realized that their peers were having their ability to achieve severely disrupted by short-term financial crises that weren’t covered by financial aid. Many UC Davis students are attending school with little or no assistance from their families, and may not have any funding source to fall back on in a time of need. This program was conceived to cover food, rent and other essential costs not covered by other programs, to keep students on track for academic success.

Some of the K-12 Outreach Programs: The Animal Ambassadors Program is designed to use the world of animals, both domesticated and wild, as a 'bridge' to help youth develop an interest in science and acquire critical thinking and life skills. Furthermore, it builds a foundation of care and responsibility toward animals, and, by extension, toward themselves and other humans. UC Davis ArtsBridge offers immersive, sequential classroom projects in art, dance, drama, music and the digital arts. Projects are tailored to individual classroom needs, with an emphasis on culturally relevant pedagogy that promotes community and student empowerment through the arts. BioTech SYSTEM is a Northern California consortium supporting STEM education in grades K-14 and fostering a collaborative network that includes diverse stakeholders in the biotech community. BioTech SYSTEM aims to address regional challenges in STEM education by facilitating professional development opportunities for life science educators, mobilizing resources in support of student activities, and educating stakeholders on potential life science training programs and career paths. Ultimately, they hope to engage diverse segments of society in conversations about life science impacts on health care, agriculture, and the environment. The Biotechnology in the Classroom program provides accessible, objective information along with a contemporary lab experience for high school students and teachers in the Greater Sacramento Valley. The R. M. Bohart Museum of Entomology, founded in 1946, is located on the University of California, Davis campus. The museum is dedicated to teaching, research and service. Current education programs reach over 10,000 people per year and include traveling programs to schools and educational material loans for integration into classroom curriculum. The mission of the UC Davis Botanical Conservatory is to inspire, facilitate, promote and engage visitors with an understanding and appreciation of plants, their diversity and the pivotal role they serve in the environments where they are found. The Conservatory and the collections within serve as an interactive and multi-sensory museum containing a large diversity of live specimens relied on for teaching or research purposes at the UC Davis campus and available for other academic institutions including K-12 in northern California. Each spring, school children visit the “Kids in the Garden” program at the Ecological Garden. They experience garden and farm ecology first-hand through harvesting crops and tasting fresh produce, feeding chickens and examining compost worms, and exploring nature. Older students can become more actively involved in agricultural production by helping to plant or harvest at the Student Farm. The Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP) was implemented in 1976 by the University in response to the State Legislature's recommendation to increase the number of economically disadvantaged and educationally disadvantaged students who are competitively eligible for postsecondary education. EAOP mission is to contribute to educational equity and access by motivating and preparing students to pursue and succeed in postsecondary opportunities. The California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science, COSMOS, is a 4-week summer residential program for high achieving math and science students. Students live on campus and attend subject specific classes taught by UC faculty and researchers. The program is open to 9th-12th grade high school students. This intense academic program is intended to inspire and encourage young people to pursue future study in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) related field. The Healthy Start Field Office (HSFO) was created to provide training and technical assistance services to the more than 1,000 public schools in California receiving SB-620 Healthy Start planning or operational grants from the California Department of Education (CDE). The Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology is a vertebrate museum dedicated to education, outreach, conservation, and research. The MWFB has conducts outreach to science and non-science students, professionals, primary school groups, and the general public. The strength of the outreach activities is the museum’s internship program designed to recruit and expose UC Davis students to museum science and specimen based field research. The Partnership for Biotechnology and Genomics Education (PBGE) project on the UC Davis campus involves two related components of secondary education focused on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) concepts. The components include the development and distribution of innovative 3D virtual reality software and a highly successful laboratory equipment loan program with associated curricula for hands-on instruction in biotechnology for secondary schools. ACS Project SEED is a summer research program that opens new doors for economically disadvantaged high school students to experience what it’s like to be a chemist. The program provides opportunities for students who historically lack exposure to scientific careers to spend a summer conducting hands-on research with a scientist in academic, industry, and government research laboratories. The UC Davis Young Scholars Program is a summer residential research program designed to expose 40, high achieving high school students to the world of original research in the natural sciences with emphases on the biological, environmental and agricultural sciences. In addition to scientific research, the UCD-YSP strives to introduce participants to the climate and culture of living and working on a university campus. Staff make every effort to model the experiences that participants will have during their first years of college.