Berkeley Community Scholars

Berkeley Community Scholars (BCS) believes a college degree is a big step toward closing the income, wealth, and health divides in the U.S. and in Berkeley.

In 2015, the median income for Berkeley males with only a high school diploma was $26,500 compared to $50,800 for males with a bachelor's degree and $75,000 for those with a graduate degree. The median income for females with only a high school diploma was $29,000 compared to $41,300 for those with a bachelor's degree. Berkeley is a highly educated city -- 70.9% of residents age 25 and older have a bachelor's degree and 38.1% have a professional or graduate degree. Educational attainment varies greatly by race and ethnic group and, subsequently, so does income, wealth and health.

At Berkeley High School, about 30% of students are classified as socio-economically disadvantaged. Year-to-year, about 140 graduating seniors in this group meet the requirements for admission to the University of California or California State University systems and would be in the first generation of their family to attend college. Access to college is not a problem for most of them. Affordability and persistence are the greater challenges, given the obstacles they encounter. Students have the ability but not the social or financial safety nets that foster success.

Berkeley Community Scholars' programs were developed to address the needs of these students. The program started in 2008 (when we were known as Berkeley Community Fund), and has grown ever since.

The primary goals are for our scholars to graduate with a bachelor's degree within 6-years (whether they start their journey at community college or at a bachelor's degree-granting institution) with a manageable amount of debt, and with the tools they need to shape a successful career. Further goals are for our scholars, within 2-years of graduating, to be in a career-track job or on-track for graduate school and engaged in our alumni council community.

We envision a more equitable future in which our scholars, who embody the diversity, spirit, and values of our community, achieve their aspirations and become more economically secure.

We would like to expand our services to more Berkeley youth from the demographic group that we serve.

Our program strategies encompass the following:

Scholar Selection. We recruit applicants who are living in the lower economic quartiles, who are in the first generation of their family to attend college, and/or from backgrounds that are underrepresented on college campuses.

Direct Financial Aid. We provide scholarship funds to fill the gap between financial aid and the real costs of college.

Guidance, Support, and Empowerment. BCS staff explain and assess student loans and student aid packages, provide transition-to-college and other workshops, guide students with goal-setting throughout college, encourage a growth mindset, and connect students to resources. Volunteer community mentors provide life and career mentoring and connections to their social capital.

Employability. BCS works with scholars to develop career plans, which are updated annually. We provide access to workshops to build skillsets, to internships, and to informational interviews.

Community Building. BCS offers events and connections to "near peer" networks on campuses attended by other BCS scholars, to foster a sense of belonging. Supporters also share their social capital, giving scholars access to opportunities outside of their own social networks.

Our program services are carried out by a well-credentialed, experienced, and exceptionally caring professional staff. Our high-touch approach has led to high success - as of December 2021, 77% of our scholars have stayed the course and earned a bachelor's degree within 6-years of starting our program, which is about six times the rate of their national peers.

Our staff, volunteer community mentors, and board members reflect the diversity and experience of the scholars we serve. Mentor/Mentee matches are made based on gender, career aspirations, and interests. Students highly value these collaborative teams who believe in them, "have their backs," understand the challenges and rewards of college, and provide an otherwise "missing piece" on their path to college success.

Our programs fund and support students who start at community college and plan to transfer to a bachelor's degree-granting school and students who attend a bachelor's degree-granting school immediately after graduating from high school. The framework of support for these two paths is based on best-practices, lessons-learned from pilot programs, and scholar feedback. We regularly collect feedback from our scholars to determine how well our program meets their needs and incorporate it into our program planning. We also have two alumni of our program serve on our board. The alumni provide us with scholar perspectives as we create policies and make decisions.

BCS is well-managed and takes a measured approach to scaling its programs. The High Hopes Scholarship Program (which encompasses our bachelor's degree and community college scholarships) started in 2008 with one part-time administrator serving 8 scholars and 8 volunteer mentors. As of Spring 2022, BCS had 5 full-time and 1 part-time staff and 100+ volunteer mentors serving 140 scholars. We use a dynamic financial model to forecast how the addition of each new scholar impacts program overhead and resources, including the caseload of our college success advisors and the quality and delivery of program services.

We collaborate with other community organizations to learn from their experience and to ensure we complement, rather than duplicate, services provided by others.

Our diverse and dedicated board of directors contributes financially at 100% and contributes immensely to the scholarship funds and programs offered to our scholars.

Our scholarship program was established in 2008, when Berkeley Community Scholars (then known as Berkeley Community Fund) decided to focus on providing scholarships to Berkeley youth pursuing bachelor's degrees. We started with 8 scholars, 8 mentors, and a PT administrator. In 2012, we received a capacity-building grant to hire a full-time executive director who was familiar with best practices at other scholarship organizations, to increase the number of scholarships granted and to build the support structure for achieving our mission. Next, we hired a college success advisor to serve as a case manager for our students. Our goal was to serve 100 scholars at a time by granting at least 25 new scholarships each year. As the number of scholarships increased, we hired a second college success advisor to serve students and to professionalize our mentoring program. The support provided by the college success advisors and mentors has been instrumental to the success of our scholars.

In 2015, we established a Finish Line Fund to allow our scholars to apply for funding beyond the amount of their original scholarship. The purpose is to help our scholars overcome obstacles to completing their BA/BS degree and/or to allow scholars to participate in educational opportunities that would enhance their preparedness for post-baccalaureate careers or educational pursuits.

In 2017, we learned that 40% of the Berkeley High students in the lower economic quartiles start at community college. Knowing students in this group are less likely to complete college, we created a pilot program to help them succeed. We secured a $250K grant for this pilot from Bayer USA and smaller grants from the City of Berkeley and the UC Chancellor's Community Partnership Fund. We applied lessons learned from the pilot to the design of the program, and it is now a permanent program. Our Community College scholars who successfully transfer to a 4-year college are eligible to apply for an additional $8,000 scholarship (paid in increments during each semester or trimester).

When many of our scholars were severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, we created an Emergency Fund to help them overcome the economic shocks of the pandemic and continue their focus on school. We also added mental health support.

In response to our scholars' requests for help with career connections, we created LevelUp, a new pilot program that provides career coaching and guidance, professional and personal development and training, and access to career opportunities.

Our program has grown since 2008. Today about 140 scholars actively participate in our program. These students are supported by 4 professional college success advisors and over 100 volunteer community mentors. Measuring from 2008-2021, 86% of our scholars have graduated or persist toward earning their degree. The program has come full-circle, in that alumni are now sitting on our board, donating funds, and mentoring our newest scholars.