September / October 2004

Dear Friends,

With the arrival of autumn and, for many, the promise of a new academic year, now is a good time to reflect on the realities facing young people in California, especially those who plan to begin their college education this fall.

What researchers are learning about our young people making the transition from high school to college and professional opportunities is alarming. Although more than 97 percent of our youth say they would like some form of higher education, and 63 percent actually enroll, only one third of them are adequately prepared to enter college. And approximately 30 percent of Californians ages 18 to 24—nearly one million young people—do not have high school diplomas.

The Irvine Foundation believes that investing in the minds and lives of young Californians pays rich dividends, for the individual and their communities and for the continued cultural and economic health of the state. For these reasons, the Irvine Foundation has focused its Youth program on supporting low-income youth in California, ages 14 to 24, to become productive and engaged members of our society.

One of the key goals of our Youth program is to support both point-of-entry and point-of-exit projects that help create successful transitions from high school to higher education for low-income youth and their families. Our visits to and research in the Central Valley and Inland Empire, regions of strategic importance to the Foundation, have been instructive about the need for community-based solutions to support first-generation, college-going youth and their families, as illustrated by two such Irvine-supported programs currently underway:

• The San Bernardino County Alliance for Education, a partnership of business, education, and government leaders, seeks to raise the academic, workplace, and technological literacy of San Bernardino County Schools through regional efforts to create alignment across the K-12, higher education, and business communities. Irvine will fund a two-year pilot project to provide specialized curricular support and a one-on-one mentor/tutor literacy system for nearly 3,000 students ages 14-24 during high school and the critical first years of post-secondary education. The Alliance will also engage local business partners to provide out-of-school, project-based learning experiences that complement the curriculum. The Alliance is developing a rigorous evaluation and student-tracking system to inform future expansion of this model, which has the potential to help approximately one-third of all high school students (more than 23,000) in San Bernadino County.
• MDRC's "Opening Doors" project is designed to help low-income students succeed in community college as a pathway to four-year universities, better jobs, and increased civic engagement. Irvine funding will support the program at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, in San Bernardino County, where approximately 3,000 of 20,000 students fall into academic probation and are in danger of losing their financial aid and dropping out. To accurately measure Opening Doors' impact on educational, labor market, and personal development outcomes, MDRC will also track and compare participants' experiences against those who receive the traditional community college offerings.

Through these and other programs we are funding throughout the state, Irvine is working to help the next generation of Californians to gain the skills that will allow them to enter our higher education system and to succeed.

I invite you to review our Youth program's grantmaking priorities to learn more about specific grants and initiatives and, as always, appreciate your interest in the Foundation's work. We also welcome your questions, comments, and suggestions at any time.

Sincerely,

James E. Canales
President & CEO

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