The Campaign for College Opportunity announced that Long Beach City College (LBCC) is amongst 27 California Community Colleges and California State University (CSU) campuses leading the way to simplify transfer for students as part of the annual Champions of Higher Education for Excellence in Transfer award ceremony. LBCC will be recognized as 2023 Equity Champions of Higher Education for working with intentionality to support Black students through the Associate Degree for Transfer (ADT).

“LBCC’s transfer and ADT completion rates for Black students have continued to rise for the past six years despite obstacles our students have faced,” said LBCC Board of Trustees President Herlinda Chico. “I am so proud of our students who have adapted and embraced changing learning modalities and kept working through the challenges that were exasperated by the pandemic.”

In 2022-2023, 140 Black students received their ADT, which is a 250% increase compared to seven years ago.

“We are incredibly proud to receive this recognition for our focused efforts to improve academic success among our Black students, as we seek to increase the number of ADTs awarded and boost transfers to universities,” said LBCC Superintendent-President Dr. Mike Muñoz. “Significantly, we know we’ve increased the number of Black students who are obtaining their bachelor’s degree at faster rates, leading to substantial time and cost savings to them and their families.”

LBCC is among the following colleges and universities honored as 2023 Equity Champions of Higher Education for Black Students:

• Evergreen Valley College
• Citrus College
• Berkeley City College
• Crafton Hills College
• College of the Desert
• California State University, Fresno
• California State University, Fullerton
• California State University, Long Beach
• California State University, Los Angeles
• California State University, San Bernardino
• Sacramento State University

LBCC will be recognized at an official award ceremony on November 14, 2023 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time.

Eighteen community college campuses are recognized for excellence in implementing the ADT, an instrumental pathway that has streamlined the transfer process for over a decade. Nine CSU campuses are recognized for enrolling ADT-earning students and enrolling them on a guaranteed pathway to a four-year degree. Additionally, several college and university honorees are excelling in closing equity gaps for Latina/o/x and/or Black transfer students via the ADT and will be recognized as Equity Champions.

Racial equity gaps persist in transfer rates between Latina/o/x and Black students and their peers. For those reasons, the Campaign developed equity measures: one for community colleges that assesses how Latina/o/x and Black students are accessing and earning ADTs relative to the campus average of all other students, and one for CSUs that assesses whether over half of their Latina/o/x or Black undergraduate transfer students earned an ADT, and that of those ADT earners, over half were also enrolled on a guaranteed pathway.

Though community college is often thought of as a two-year stepping stone to a university, the lived experience of students indicates otherwise: many are caught in a confusing maze, navigating varied course requirements and inconsistent guidance to achieve their transfer goals.

In response, the Campaign for College Opportunity championed SB 1440 (Padilla) in 2010, creating the ADT pathway. Today, the ADT has impacted the lives of nearly 490,000 students by supporting them on a faster road to transfer with guaranteed admission to the CSU system, saving students valuable time and money. And, though new research indicates that California still must make progress to support transfer students, the ADT has shown promising results: students who successfully transfer show greater use of the ADT, and more Latinx and Black students are choosing the ADT as their preferred transfer pathway.

“For nearly a decade, the ADT has given community college students struggling to navigate a complicated transfer maze a clear path to success with a degree to show for their hard work.  As colleges grapple with pandemic-induced enrollment declines, we laud the 27community college and CSU campuses that continue to forge ahead for students by strengthening the transfer pathway and removing unacceptable equity barriers in transfer for Latinx, Black, and first-generation college students across the state,” said Jessie Ryan, executive vice president of the Campaign for College Opportunity and former community college transfer student.

“Strengthening transfer is one of the most vital tools to advancing diversity at four-year colleges and universities, combatting the discriminatory effects of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision banning race-conscious admissions. A majority of California’s Latinx, Black, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, and American Indian/Alaska Native students will begin their college journey at a community college. The work these dedicated campuses are accomplishing is nothing short of heroic and essential to our nation’s future well-being,” concluded Ryan.

This is the sixth time out of seven years that the Campaign for College Opportunity has recognized LBCC for their transfer efforts.

About Campaign for College Opportunity
The Campaign for College Opportunity is a California non-profit bipartisan policy and research organization focused on a single mission: to ensure all Californians have an equal opportunity to attend and succeed in college in order to build a vibrant workforce, economy, and democracy. For more information, visit www.CollegeCampaign.org, Facebook.com/CollegeCampaign or follow @CollegeOpp.