College Is Covered at Santa Barbara City College

SBCC Foundation Ensures Regional Students Return to School Post-Pandemic

Paola Melchor is a recent graduate of the SBCC Promise program. | Credit: Courtesy

Santa Barbara City College’s groundbreaking SBCC Promise is bouncing back after a 35 percent enrollment drop since the early days of the pandemic. With the slow return to some semblance of normalcy, students are revisiting the promise of a debt-free education at one of the finest community colleges in the nation.

Across the country, college promises have taken on a range of student support, with offerings of a semester or a year of tuition-free learning. SBCC, on the other hand, goes bigger. “What we are doing here is leading nationally, absolutely top of the heap,” said Geoff Green, CEO of the SBCC Foundation, which launched the program in 2016 with funding from the private sector. As students return and numbers stabilize, Green would like to tackle a few items on his wish list: offer the SBCC Promise to all local prospects no matter when they graduated high school; extend the program to part-time students; and help cover childcare for Promise parents.

For more details, I asked SBCC Promise Manager Sergio Lagunas.