UC Berkeley college access program serving 1,500 students cut over ‘equity’ reference

For 50 years, UC Berkeley has placed advisors in East Bay middle and high schools, where they’ve helped students develop life skills, learn about college and navigate financial aid opportunities. The program has been a driver of social mobility, especially for lower-income, first-generation students who might not otherwise know their options.

But in September, officials in Washington canceled the $836,000 annual grant for Berkeley’s Educational Talent Search program. 

Now, college advisors who should be holding application workshops and arranging campus visits are instead saying goodbye to the 1,507 students who rely on the program.

“It was painful. It was shocking. It was a gut punch,” said Yvette Flores, Berkeley’s assistant vice chancellor for educational partnerships, who oversees the Center for Educational Partnerships, which houses the program.

The rejection letter cited a detail in grant paperwork from five years ago indicating that project leaders had attended management meetings about “equity and inclusion.” Those meetings were administrative gatherings for the organizational unit that houses the program — the Division of Equity and Inclusion. The program was moved to the Division of Student Affairs a few months after the grant proposal was filed in 2020.

But that years-old, seemingly innocuous detail caught the eye of the federal agency. The rejection letter said such programs “conflict with the department’s policy of prioritizing merit, fairness and excellence in education; undermine the well-being of the students these programs are intended to help; or constitute an inappropriate use of federal funds.” 

It’s an unjustifiable rationale, program leaders said, noting the bipartisan support the program has received for years and the high marks it has earned. 

Educational Talent Search is one of eight nationally renowned initiatives under what’s known as the Federal TRIO Programs, a reference to the first three programs under its umbrella — Upward Bound, Talent Search and Student Support Services. Authorized by Congress in the 1960s and administered by the U.S. Department of Education, TRIO programs were created as an anti-poverty initiative meant to help connect students from lower-income communities nationwide with advisors and programs that could help prepare them for trade schools and four-year universities.

Berkeley has long been home to one of the largest and highest-rated TRIO programs in the country. Its Educational Talent Search program has been federally funded since 1997. 

Keyanna Hatcher has been a college advisor with Berkeley’s TRIO program for eight years and director for the past two. She was on her honeymoon in early September when she checked her email one evening and saw the notice announcing the funding rejection. She immediately forwarded it to her team, feeling stunned that the cuts she’d been reading about for months had come to her program.

“It never crossed my mind,” she said. “I was in complete shock.”

The work Berkeley’s college advisors do to develop curricula and help students go on to fulfilling careers has been a model for others, said Claudia Morales, executive director of Berkeley’s Center for Educational Partnerships. 

The grant requires at least two-thirds of students to be first-generation; nearly 75% of students in Berkeley’s program are. At least 64% must enroll in an educational program after graduating high school, and approximately 77% of students do.

Grants are awarded on five-year cycles, and Berkeley was in the final year of the current award. That makes this feel especially cruel, Morales said. Federal officials for months have criticized the program and looked for any opportunities to dismantle the work. The argument that TRIO programs are unaccountable is an “extraordinarily false narrative.”

“Any situation where students have been, or schools have been, under-resourced, TRIO programs have been such an amazing and good and positive impact,” Morales said.

Approximately 100 TRIO programs nationwide have had grants rejected or terminated in recent weeks, Inside Higher Ed reported.

After learning of the funding cut, Berkeley leaders gathered six full-time staff who work in area middle and high schools on a Zoom call to share the news.

“Their biggest concern was their students, which made this even more emotional,” Flores said. “Because you just see how much they care and how much they love what they do and how much they love their students.”

Giselle Esquer has had to say goodbye to the 250 students she worked with at De Anza High School in Richmond and 100 others she works with remotely. A first-generation Berkeley graduate, Esquer always wanted a career working with young people who lacked resources and support systems to help them see how college might be an option. She said getting hired a year ago and being able to spend three days a week working in person with students “felt like a perfect match.”

The 20-plus workshops she led, helping students develop their writing skills or families navigate financial aid, were deeply rewarding. But just as important were the individual students whose attendance and grades were slipping and who — with her focused attention — were able to graduate and pursue college degrees.

Without college access programs like TRIO, Esquer worries the pipeline for students pursuing higher education will get narrower at a time when such training and credentials are essential.

“I was one of those kids that might have fallen through the cracks, or at least I felt like I did fall through the cracks,” she said of her own high school experience before attending community college and transferring to Berkeley. “With our program, we open the opportunity to all students.”

Anthony Landeros first learned about TRIO in 2012 as a high school student in an Upward Bound program run by Sonoma State University, where he said counselors saw his potential and became his primary support system. He paid it forward, becoming a program coordinator and, in 2023, joining Berkeley’s Educational Talent Search program.

Fewer young people will have the guidance and resources they need to reach higher education.

Anthony Landeros, college advisor

“It’s been incredible to continue giving back through the same kind of program that once changed my own life,” he said.

Landeros worked most recently at Pinole Valley and El Cerrito high schools, leading monthly workshops, one-on-one advising and a summer course on data learning. He and Esquer planned a week-long tour that introduced students to the academic, social and cultural life of colleges in the Los Angeles area, with stops at several colleges.

He said the program made a noticeable difference in students’ confidence. One girl visited the college and career center every Tuesday and Thursday to get help with her college essay, he said. She ended up being admitted to Columbia University.

“Many who started out unsure about their future ended up applying to colleges, earning scholarships and setting long-term goals they might never have imagined before,” he said. “The program showed what happens when young people are given both the tools and the belief that they can succeed.”

The cuts are about more than a loss of tutoring and mentoring, Landeros said.

“Fewer young people will have the guidance and resources they need to reach higher education,” he said. “That affects local communities and the workforce as well, because fewer students are able to achieve their full potential and contribute back.”

Berkeley’s Center for Educational Partnerships has backfilled some of the program’s budget, allowing for advisors to wind down their time in schools and say goodbye to students. But that money is running out, and the timing of the cut midway through the budget year is causing a “reverberating impact,” Flores said.

“It has this ripple effect that is going to be very hard to navigate,” she said. “We’re worried. But we’re also troopers, and we believe firmly in the work that we do. We believe that our students are worth every ounce of energy and effort we have.”

Since returning from her honeymoon, Hatcher’s phone has been buzzing continuously. Students are wondering who they should turn to, especially in schools where there aren’t alternative college access resources. Seniors are peppering her with questions about their college applications. Students who graduated, in part thanks to her mentorship, are asking if there’s anything to be done — a petition to sign or a phone call to make. 

And parents are stressing about their children losing such an important resource for their long-term educational and professional success.

“I feel a sense of desperation from families. We’re that missing link for them,” Hatcher said. “I’ve just been trying to still be as present as I can. But the honest truth is I can’t do it for 1,507 students.”