FRESNO — High school students on Oct. 23 shouted out a rousing cheer of “sí, se puede” to the news that UC’s new Project You Can would help them pay for a UC education.

UC President Mark G. Yudof launched the launched the new student scholarship fundraising effort during a visit to Sunnyside High School in east Fresno. Eighty-seven percent of Sunnyside’s more than 3,200 students come from low-income families.

“We’re in the opportunity business, and we want to knock on as many doors as possible,” Yudof told an assembly of 250 students, all enrolled in competitive academic programs thathe school offers.

Yudof detailed two student support efforts that will help make a UC degree possible for many students who face financial hardships.

Doubling student aid

Through Project You Can, the 10 UC campuses aim to raise $1 billion in the next four years for student support — doubling the amount they collectively raised for students during the last five years.

Yudof also is asking the Board of Regents to raise the income ceiling on the Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan to make more lower-income families eligible.

Now, the plan covers all systemwide fees for financial aid-eligible California resident undergraduates with household incomes of $60,000 and below. Yudof is proposing to raise the income level to $70,000.

Regents are due to vote on both student support efforts at the November board meeting.

Both efforts are intended to fill the growing financial needs many college-bound Californians are experiencing.

“You know as well as anyone in this state that these are tough times,” Yudof told the students. “Many of your families are struggling to hold on to jobs, to homes, to dreams. In the next few weeks you may read some scary headlines that say, ‘Fees are going up at UC.’

“You and your family may be thinking, ‘We can’t afford it. UC is out of reach.’ I’m here today to tell you that’s not true.”

The event began with the school’s marching band entertaining the audience. A group of 45 members and alumni of the school’s Doctors Academy sat with Yudof on the stage when he announced the new financial support efforts.

Among those attending was Dr. Katherine Flores, who founded the Doctors Academy. Raised by her grandparents, she left the fields behind to earn her bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and later graduated from the UC Davis School of Medicine. She returned to the Fresno area where doctors are in short supply and started the academy as a way to help future generations follow her trail.

Before the assembly, UC Regents Odessa Johnson and Fred Ruiz, Academic Senate Chair Harry Powell and UC Merced Chancellor Steven Kang met with students enrolled in the academy. Flores encouraged students to take advantage of the support UC can offer.

“I feel like anything is possible now,” said Valerie Rodriguez, a senior who wants to be a doctor and to attend to a UC. “It’s like your dreams will happen, and you can dream big.”

School counselor Mony Ward said it was encouraging in these tough economic times to hear that UC is creating programs to make financial help available.

“As a counselor I can say, ‘Yes, you will apply to a UC, you will be competitive and you will get in,’ “ Ward said.

With state per-student support dropping dramatically — 40 percent since 1990 — students have had to shoulder more of the cost of their education through fee increases. Faced with an $813 million state budget cut in two years, UC regents next month are scheduled to consider a midyear fee increase for 2009-10 and another increase for 2010-11.

If approved, resident undergraduate fees would rise from  $7,788 to $10,302 by the fall of 2010.

UC sets aside a third of undergraduate fee-increase revenue and half of graduate fee increases for financial aid. The campuses raise about $100 million annually in private donations to support students.

In 2008-09, more than half of UC undergraduates received gift aid averaging $11,100 per student. But donor-supported scholarships and fellowships traditionally have played a smaller role in UC student financial support than state, federal and UC grants.

As student need has grown, campuses have expanded their student support fundraising. Project You Can takes those efforts up another notch. That was a message Sunnyside High School students were glad to hear.

“I think the president’s speech showed us there are no walls blocking you,” said student Darlena Meas. “There’s always a way to make it possible. Like he said, ‘Sí, se puede.’ “

In comments preceding his address, Yudof said he and the chancellors of all the campuses “agree that we need to be working on all fronts to maintain and enhance access and affordability even in times of tight budgets and continuing state disinvestment.”

The pain is shared, with the fee increases for students and furloughs and pay cuts for faculty and staff, and budget cuts across academic and administrative units.

At the same time, the university has been exploring potential sources of new revenue in a variety of ways, including the recently formed UC Commission on the Future. (See “In Brief,” page 3.)

“While what I have proposed today will allow us to preserve access and help students with financial need, they are not a substitute for adequate state support,” Yudof said. “We must continue our relentless advocacy in Sacramento for increased state funding, even while we explore new ways to increase support for the university and our students. We must be creative and flexible, except when it comes to one thing: the historic excellence of the university. That is one area where I will not compromise.”

MORE INFORMATION

Investing in tomorrow’s leaders at UC Davis: giving.ucdavis.edu/tomorrows_leaders.html

UC Project You Can: youcan.universityofcalifornia.edu

Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan: universityofcalifornia.edu/blueandgold

Donna Hemmila is a managing editor in the UC Office of the President’s Integrated Communications group.