When she was 18 years old, Ayeisha Gipson wasn’t sure college was the right move for her. She was apathetic about school, despite her mother’s passionate urging that she matriculate to a university. Gipson enrolled at San Diego City College to appease her mother, but she didn’t really know what she wanted to pursue. She thought becoming a radio DJ might be fun.
So, in 2009, Gipson met with a counselor at San Diego City College — but it was an unfortunate encounter. Instead of receiving guidance, she received discouragement. The counselor told her a radio jockey job was unattainable for a Black woman.
Gipson does not remember the name of the counselor whom she met with that day — and he no longer works at San Diego City College — but she does know that her relationship with higher education went downhill from there. It wasn’t until 2015 that she felt compelled to try school again.
Ayeisha Gipson earned an associate degree from San Diego City College and a bachelor’s degree from Grambling State University. Gipson will begin studying for her master’s degree at Teacher’s College of Columbia University this fall.
She returned to San Diego City College. And she found that something important had occurred during the six years of her absence.
In 2010, California law established a direct transfer agreement between its community colleges and four-year state schools, like California State or University of California system universities. The legislation allowed for the California Community Colleges (CCC) to create a separate degree path called an Associate for Transfer Degree that guaranteed transfer for students with a minimum of a 2.5 GPA. In theory, students spend two years at community college and two years at a four-year institution, graduating with both an associate and bachelor’s degree.
Bob Quinn, a specialist at the CCC chancellor’s office, says he could see that “the students most impacted and made successful by this [new agreement] would be those with lower transfer success rate within our system. Of the students that have indicated an intent to transfer, only 40% do it. For our Black students who indicate intent to transfer, the number is only 35%.”
