Tucked in under the Coronado Bay Bridge is a small nonprofit organization that, since 1996, has been putting big ideas of college success into the heads of young students who live in one of the most economically and educationally disadvantaged communities in the country. Starting young is a key strategy: “We recruit the children beginning in the third grade,” says executive director Diana Getrich Villegas, “then support them through high school. Our goal is to have at least 100 BLCI students make their college dreams a reality by 2016.” The odds are steep: “Only 1.5 percent of Barrio Logan residents over the age of twenty-five have a bachelor’s degree,” says Villegas.
The mission of the institute is to promote the pursuit of higher education for students who are traditionally underrepresented in college. This is accomplished through after-school programs grades three through twelve, utilizing age-appropriate college-bound strategies such as tutoring, college-prep and skill-building workshops, leadership training, career exploration and internship programs, college visits and field trips, mentoring, and individual academic advising.
“More important,” says Villegas, “we train families to utilize the resources available to them, so that our parents and students become experts in the college application process.”
BLCI currently has twenty-seven student-alumni, all of whom have been accepted to college (three currently attend UC San Diego). Although well prepared, the next challenge for these students is the ability to afford college. “One of our students was recently working thirty to forty hours a week. She didn’t pass her math class and had to leave San Francisco State University, come home and catch up at the community college.” The student is now back at SFSU. “If she’d had a scholarship,” says Villegas, “she wouldn’t have had to work.”
“Scholarships are crucial,” says Villegas, “Rather than dropping down to part-time student status and working, they can focus on school rather than paying for school.”