How Imperial Valley’s effort to create a ‘college-going culture’ garnered national recognition

Imperial Valley College

In California’s Imperial County, bachelor’s degree attainment is rare. Fewer than 16% of adults in the county, located in the southeast part of the state along the Mexican border, have a four-year degree. It’s the lowest rate of any county in Southern California and one of the lowest levels in the entire state.

But the county’s lone community college, Imperial Valley College, is trying to change that. When he arrived at the college as a top administrator in 2016, Lennor Johnson, now the president of Imperial Valley, set out to create what he calls a “college-going culture.”

It starts with partnerships with the county’s high schools to get their students on the path to attending community college and possibly transferring to a four-year university.

For the college’s efforts, which have resulted in a 12% jump in graduation rates over the past four years, Imperial Valley was recently awarded the Aspen Prize, one of the nation’s top awards for community colleges that are achieving growing and equitable student outcomes.

The award comes with a $1 million prize. This year, Imperial Valley split the prize with Amarillo College in Texas. Imperial Valley is the first college in California’s community college system to get the award since Santa Barbara City College in 2013.

“My commitment when I took on this role was I want to increase the number of college graduates in the county,” Johnson said in an interview. “So how do you do that? You have to change the culture within the high schools and middle schools. You have to start giving students a taste of college as early as possible.”

Upon arriving at Imperial Valley in 2016, Johnson was the vice president of student services for five years and played a big role in expanding the college’s dual enrollment programs, in which students receive college credit for certain courses taken while in high school. He then became interim president in 2021 and the college’s permanent president the following year.

Helping the region’s students access college is particularly important, Johnson said, because many of them live in poverty. Across the county, which is 85% Latino, about 25% of residents live in poverty, including about one-third of people under 18.

Imperial Valley staff members are in the county’s high schools every day, often recruiting students for the college’s dual enrollment programs. Six of the county’s seven high schools participate in those programs, said Johnson, adding that his staff is “very aggressive in talking to the students, working with administrators and counselors” to enroll students.

The college aims for students in its dual enrollment programs to take at least 15 units before they graduate from high school, as Johnson believes that students who take that many units are likely to continue their education after graduating. Students don’t necessarily need to pick a certain major or career path, but Johnson said the idea is they will at least get a sense of what program they want to enroll in once they get to college.

“Our end goal is to make sure that all the students have at least a preliminary plan on file,” he said.

Some students don’t opt to take dual enrollment courses, but Imperial Valley staff still encourage them to consider attending after high school. Staff often give presentations at the high schools and have students apply on the spot.

The college’s goal is for 90% of high schoolers to apply before graduation to Imperial Valley, which, like all community colleges, has open enrollment.

“And really, it is not so much just for IVC’s purpose, it’s just to make sure that we create that college-going culture by being very accessible,” Johnson said. “Because we know that in an impoverished community, it’s hard. So we come out to them and walk them through the process, so by the time they graduate from high school, they already know that this is a potential destination for them.”

The college’s outreach isn’t only to students. Staff also hold workshops for parents of high schoolers to give them a better sense of the value of community college, Johnson said.

According to Johnson, many parents are unaware that tuition for community college is inexpensive. Tuition at California’s community colleges is $46 per unit — much less than four-year universities — and most students qualify to have those costs waived entirely. But parents often assume that they’ll end up paying tens of thousands of dollars in loans, Johnson said.

“So we just want to attack those myths and try to educate the parents as well as the students,” he said.

Imperial Valley was also recognized by the Aspen Institute, which awards the Aspen Prize, for its work regarding transferring students to four-year universities. The college has articulation agreements with several universities, including San Diego State University, which operates a satellite campus about 10 miles from Imperial Valley’s campus.

More than half of students who transfer from Imperial Valley go on to earn a bachelor’s degree within six years of when they first enroll at Imperial Valley, according to the Aspen Institute.

“You don’t win this prize by one thing, with some silver bullet,” Johnson said. “I think the things we have done collectively really made us stand out. At the end of the day, we focus on student success, which all colleges do, but I think we really put it on steroids.”