UC Merced heads south to coax San Diego students to Valley

High school students in San Diego can expect to see more recruiters from UC Merced this year as the Valley school pushes to add 3,000 students by 2020.

Recruiters made 82 visits to San Diego in the 2015-16 school year, and more are expected next year, UC Merced Chancellor Dorothy Leland said during a trip to the city last week.

Leland said many of the visits have been specifically in the San Diego Unified School District because its demographics are seen as a good match with the university’s.

San Diego Unified’s enrollment is 46 percent Latinos and 26 percent English learners. UC Merced’s enrollment is 48 percent Latinos, with 67 percent being the first in their families to attend college.

The school district has an emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and 52 percent of UC Merced students study STEM.

“We’re a young, innovative, rapidly growing campus, amazingly diverse with lots of opportunities for students to work with faculty on cutting-edge research with a focus on STEM disciplines,” Leland said about the school, which opened in 2005 as the 10th and newest campus in the University of California system.

It’s a strong pitch, but convincing young San Diegans to leave the beach for the San Joaquin Valley might be a tough sell.

The Merced Chamber of Commerce’s website lists one activity for October, the “Eggs & Issues State of Education Breakfast,” and one dinner and auction next month. The Merced Main Street Association has no upcoming events listed on its website. A Yelp listing of the top 10 fun things to do in Merced lists only five things that are actually in Merced.

Leland acknowledges that Merced isn’t the most happening town, but said the region has plenty to offer.

The Bay Area is two hours away, and students go on organized weekend trips to the beaches of Santa Cruz or to watch the San Francisco Giants, 49ers or Oakland A’s.

Merced also has a nature preserve, a beautiful lake, and plenty of hiking and biking trails. Yosemite National Park is a two-hour drive away, and the cost of living is significantly lower than Southern California, Leland said.

The university also is home to the Sierra Nevada Research Institute and is the only school with research labs in Yosemite. Students who intern in the Yosemite Leadership Program are exempt from taking the civil service exam to become park rangers.

“For young people who like outdoor activities, it’s a great place to be,” Leland said.

Besides San Diego, the university also recruits heavily in San Francisco, Los Angeles and other areas. Leland said it’s had good success in Southern California, which generates about a third of the enrollment.

Recruiters have increased visits to San Diego by 20 percent each year, and the school had an 11 percent increase in applications from the city in 2015-16.

The push to add students comes at a time when all universities are trying to increase enrollment to meet a projected workforce shortfall in the state. That push coincides with UC Merced’s plans to double the size of its campus from 12 to 24 buildings and reach an enrollment of 10,000 by 2020.

Leland expects that enrollment growth to come from within the state, unlike other universities that have recruited large numbers of out-of-state and international students as a way of generating money from higher fees paid by nonresidents.

A state audit released in March criticized the UC system for the practice, which it said put California residents, and minorities in particular, at a disadvantage. The system increased admission of California freshmen by more than 15 percent this fall.

The criticism didn’t apply to UC Merced, which was created to provide more access to California students, who make up 99 percent of the enrollment.

The school also is earning some recognition. U.S. News & World Report’s annual ranking of best colleges placed UC Merced at No. 78 among public schools and No. 152 overall in the “National Universities” category.

The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education recently identified UC Merced as a research institution. Leland said she expects in five to 10 years the school will have a Research One classification, the highest level and the same as UC San Diego, San Diego State University, UC Berkeley and UCLA.

Just past its first decade, the university is beginning to have a number of successful alumni. During her trip to San Diego this week, Leland met graduates who are doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs at Tribute Pizza, which was opened this year by UC Merced alumni Matt Lyons and Kurt Winbigler. As students, the two opened the Coffee Bandit Cafe, which is still in operation in Merced.

“It’s really good,” Leland said about the North Park pizzeria. “We had a great time.”

This story was originally published October 10, 2016 at 2:36 PM with the headline "UC Merced heads south to coax San Diego students to Valley."