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It’s no secret that the number of Latino students enrolling at Cal State Bakersfield keeps growing every year.

Some say the increase is due to the county’s growing Hispanic population. Others claim it’s because there’s better access to higher education for minority students.

But Maria Escobedo, director of the College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) at Cal State Bakersfield, believes more Latinos are attending the campus because the college has created more programs to help minority students.
The CAMP program is one of them, Escobedo said.

The program was created in 2000 through a five-year federal grant for $348,950. Funding for the program has been recently renewed for another five years.

The purpose of CAMP is to help ethnically diverse, first-generation migrant students get through their first year of college education and track them during the next few years to ensure they complete their bachelor’s degree.

Participating students are usually referred by high school advisers or teachers so when they get to the university, they are automatically enrolled in the program.

Since the program’s formation, the campus has seen a jump in the number of Latino students, both attending and graduating, school administrators say.

In the fall of 1999, for example, Latinos made up nearly 28 percent of the university’s student population. That percentage jumped to almost 32 percent in the fall 2004, according to statistics from the university’s Planning and Research Office.

What’s more significant is that between 2000 and 2004, nearly 300 Latino students have graduated from the university.

CAMP student Maricela Gonzalez feels the program has changed her life.

“I wouldn’t be (in the university) if it wasn’t for this program,” said Gonzalez, an 18-year-old freshman who said she was intimidated by college at first.

The CAMP program “gives us an opportunity to interact with people with the same culture and don’t feel apart,” added the sociology major.
Student Juan del Bosque also said he’s fulfilling his academic goals through the program.

“I think a lot of Latino students do not come to college because they think it’s impossible to do. But by seeing other Latinos, then they can see it’s possible,” says del Bosque, 18,  a freshman majoring in Spanish and the first one in his family to go to college.

So far, the program has served 368 migrant students, about 90 percent of them Latinos. An average of 80 students enroll in the program per year, according to Escobedo.

The program has four academic advisers and offers remedial classes in math, reading and writing both in the summer and throughout the school year.

Esther Pachuca, a 17-year-old freshman majoring in criminal justice and political science, said the program has offered her a lot of guidance on subjects such as  how to get financial and academic aid, among others.

“The program opens many doors for you,” Pachuca said.

ROSARIO ORTIZ

Más staff

Contact Rosario Ortíz at

rortiz@masbakersfield.com