Schools
Transfer Rate of Black Santa Monica College Students Rises
For the first time, more than 40 of black students at Santa Monica College transfer to the University of California.
The number of black students transferring from Santa Monica College to the University of California jumped to 43 students in 2011-12 from 25 the year prior.
"This is the first time SMC has recorded such transfers in the 40s," campus spokesman Bruce Smith said Monday in a statement.
The college's transfer center coordinator Dan Nannini said he hasn't done an extensive analysis of the data to determine what might have caused the increase, which was seen across the University of California Community Colleges system, though not to the same extent.
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The community college with the second highest transfer rate for black students was Riverside College at 24 followed by City College of San Francisco, El Camino College and San Diego Mesa College, each with 16 students. In the 2010-11 school year, the second highest transfers was El Camino College at 19, trailed by Riverside College, Laney College and Chaffey College at 13 each, according to reports provided by Nannini.
The increases were reported even as black student enrollment declined to 9.07 percent of the overall enrollment in 2011-12 from 9.39 percent the year prior.
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"Our African American Collegiate Center continues to provide quality support, as does SMC in general," Nannini said. "It might be vets. It might be more student that are not first generation college going students.
More Latino students also transfered to UC campuses in 2011-12, 129 compared to 117 in 2010-11. The Hispanic population rose last year to 30.4 percent from 28.79 percent in 2010-11.
Santa Monica College considers itself to be the leading transfer institution to UCs.
It fed a total of 1,076 students into the system last year. UCLA was the most popular, spokesman Smith said.
The school ranks itself by looking at raw numbers that don't take into account overal enrollment into account. With a population of 34,207, Santa Monica was among California's more highly populated junior colleges last year.
Correction: This article incorrectly put the enrollment of Santa Monica College at about 45,000. It's actually 34,207.
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