UC President Janet Napolitano speaks at Cuesta College

Cuesta College students were given an opportunity to speak with University of California President Janet Napolitano on Monday.

The former Secretary of Homeland Security was at the school to discuss greater accessibility for transfer students.

“Beginning in the fall of 2019, if students successfully complete a pathway and get the requisite GPA, they will be guaranteed a seat somewhere in the UC system,” said Napolitano.

The University of California system, along with California Community Colleges recently announced the new agreement.

It’s great news for thousands of transferring community college students who annually wish to continue their academic career at the UC level.

“I’m very excited that there is going to be some sort of guarantee,” said Terah Clifford. “I know that something that I as a transfer student struggled with, with the UCs, there was no guarantees. You can do follow the pathways, but that’s no guarantee that your hard work is going to pay off.”

The 24-year-old Cuesta student has been accepted at UC Berkeley and UCLA. The English major said she still hasn’t chosen which one she will attend.

While the new agreement will not impact her ability to transfer, she’s happy for future students who will have a much easier path than the one she had.

“I have loved being a transfer student even though it’s been challenging, ” Clifford said. “I think it’s going to make it a lot more feasible and I feel like community college students are going to be encouraged to transfer to UCs because they have some kind of guarantee that they might actually get here.”

Cuesta College President Dr. Gil Stork joined Napolitano on stage for the campus forum. He said he’s excited the new agreement is now place.

He added this should provide greater incentive for community college transfers to consider more about continuing their education at a UC school.

“The past performance of community college transfers has been outstanding,” said Stork. “They do equally as well or better than students who start in the UC system, so we’re really highly encouraged by this gesture and it’s such a great message to our students to say, here’s another avenue that we might not have thought about that was possible, but now, everything is possible.”

For more than hour, Napolitano spoke about the new transfer agreement and other related issues, such as financial aid, her vision for the UC future, her storied career in law and public service and much more.

She pointed out her goals are to maintain the overall excellence of the UC system, increase housing opportunities, graduation rates and diversity.

“Diversity is something very close to my heart,” said student Yotam Yellin, who has been accepted to UC Berkeley. “Trying to keep the University of California diverse and not just a body, but a faculty from all areas of the world and the country. I think that draws a better picture of what the world is.”

Napolitano also addressed the potential of an impending in-state tuition increase.

“We’re focused on advocating in Sacramento extra funding that will essentially buy out the tuition increase and the additional enrollment that we’ve had enter the universities over the last few years,” Napolitano said. “We’re very hopeful that the legislature will appreciate our needs and put it in the budget and the Governor will sign the budget and we won’t have to address an increase in in-state tuition.”

Just last week, UC regents tabled a vote that could have led to a tuition hike for in-state students. In March, regents voted to bump up out-of-state tuition by 3.5 percent.

Napolitano hopes to keep fees from rising for California students and says the state has the ability to maintain current prices.

“This year, state revenues are running well ahead of projections, so it there was any year to reinvest in public higher education in California, it would be this year,” Napolitano said.

After the student forum, Napolitano toured the Cuesta campus and also spoke with representatives with several local educational leaders.

She also spoke with members of the community at an event hosted by the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce.