New program will help students transfer from Merced College to UC Merced. How it works
UC Merced and Merced College announced the Merced Promise, which will launch a transfer pipeline between the two institutions to make it easier for local students to go through the community college and earn a bachelor’s degree from the local university.
UC Merced Chancellor Juan Sanchez Muñoz, Merced College President Chris Vitelli, U.S. Congressman Jim Costa, and Assemblymember Adam Gray all signed a memorandum of understanding that demonstrates the commitment to the Merced Promise during a news conference on Friday morning on the campus of UC Merced.
“It’s a new agreement that tries to create a seamless process for students from the region to attend school either at Merced College or UC Merced, ideally through Merced College to UC Merced to continue their education from the associate degree to the baccalaureate and ideally beyond that,” Muñoz said.
“It’s important for our community to understand they have educational options beyond high school, that they understand that they have two of the finest institutions of higher learning anywhere in the state or the country here.”
The goal is to have 150 transfer students from Merced College to UC Merced by 2025. Earlier this year, UC Merced announced the university had surpassed 9,000 students for the first time. The university’s goal is to have 15,000 students by 2030, according to Muñoz.
The partnership will help spell out pathways for Merced College students to transfer to UC Merced.
“This is a game-changer,” Vitelli said. “This is what we should be doing. We should make sure that through the community college system and through our university system, that not only California residents, but more particularly Merced, who has a unique opportunity between two quality institutions to get an education right here in their back yard.”
How the partnership works
Merced College and UC Merced will work together to facilitate discussion between faculty to ensure transfer pathways for all students are streamlined and understandable.
They will target incoming Merced College first-year students who applied for UC Merced as high school seniors but were not granted admission for program participation.
Incoming students will be shown curricular maps that will explain courses they need to transfer in a timely and orderly manner.
There will be concurrent enrollment possibilities for students with certain courses. There will be summer research opportunities for Merced College students at UC Merced.
“We’re going to create new agreements, we’re going to recognize credit, we’re going to have counselors work more carefully with one another, we’re going to try to create a more seamless process, we’re going to work together to identify financial resources,” Muñoz said. “Many of the students from this region come from very modest household incomes, and so mitigating the obstacle of finances is something we’re going to work very closely with and identify proprietary scholarships for people from the region that are competitive and ambitious.”
Partnership finally comes to fruition
The goal is to make higher learning opportunities more accessible to students in Merced County.
“Today Merced College and UC Merced solidified our partnership through the Merced Promise which essentially makes sure every single resident in Merced has the opportunity to get the most affordable and highest quality education right here in our community,” Vitelli said.
Both institutions promise to make investments in staffing, resources, and oversight that will lead to the academic coordination, faculty and administrative interactions, and student engagement between UC Merced and Merced College, according to the memorandum of understanding.
“You can focus on a community college like Merced College, that is incredible, and then at the newest University of California campus here at Merced, you can complete your degree, your masters or your PhD, and that’s what is truly unique about it,” Costa said. “And the affordability and the research that is taking place at an institution like this here will only grow by leaps and bounds as we know. So that’s why this is so important”.
Vitelli said it’s a program that has been in the works for years between the two institutions but was fast-tracked once Muñoz was named the UC Merced Chancellor earlier this year.
It’s a new day in terms of how we’re going to partner and cooperate in order to prepare our young people, not just for the careers of today, but the industries and careers of tomorrow,” Muñoz said.
