When Allyson Najera enrolled at Irvine Valley College in 2021, she worried her higher education outlook was bleak.
Najera was admitted to and planned to attend San Diego State University that year, but her family couldn’t afford it, and she instead enrolled in community college with the intention of transferring. She knew of family members who went to a community college and never transferred to a four-year university.
“I was very scared that was going to happen to me,” she said. “I remember crying the first time I went to campus.”
Yet two years later, Najera is getting ready to start her first term at UCLA, where she was successfully admitted as a sociology major. She credits her experiences at Irvine Valley: working with committed counselors, getting academic research opportunities and enrolling in an honors program that had a strong track record of transferring students to UCLA. Her time at community college was “the…
