Taxing part-time homes could help California students attend college

By Alondra Martinez, especially for CalMatters

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Getting into college is harder than ever. Every year the Americans spent about $500 million for “educational advisors” who help students navigate college applications. Most low-income, first-generation college students do not have access to these resources.

California must fund an effective college-building program for these first-generation students to ensure they all get a chance at college.

in the US, college counseling is booming. Tuition for the SAT or ACT it can cost up to $1,000. One-on-one tutoring can range from $50 to $100 per hour.

For students looking for the Ivy League, Lakhani Coaching in New York says it is average customer spends $58,000 — and 20% of his customers invest more than $100,000 — on college tuition services.

Low-income, first-generation college students like me struggle just to pay the cost of applying to college—if no fee waivers are available.

In my case, if it wasn’t Bovard Fellows at USC program, I would not have attended Stanford University. Bovard is a selective a program where high-achieving students receive free support in preparing for tests and applying to top universities.

Again, most low-income, first-generation students do not have access to this support.

There are many of us in California, where black and Latino families make up 44% of all households, but 55% of the poorest families and 12% of the richest. In contrast, white and Asian families make up 52% ​​of all households, 40% of the poorest, and 83% of the richest.

When viewing who goes to college soon after high school, 85% of Asian students are enrolled, as are 68% of white students. But only 55 percent of black and Latino students enroll within a year of graduation, and enrollment is lowest among all low-income students at 54 percent.

The numbers show that schools in the state of California have higher acceptance rates and are heavily attended by black and Latino students. On the other hand, UC schools tend to have lower acceptance rates and more often enroll Asian American and white students. Likewise, Stanford University is the 21st most attended school among black students and 39th among Hispanic students.

California’s public schools promote economic mobility, while UCs and other elite universities open doors to powerful places in society, said Anthony Leasing Antonio, a Stanford professor who specializes in higher education equity. He was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle.

California already offers some college support services to disadvantaged groups of students, such as Educational Opportunity Program and on Early Academic Learning Programbut these programs are not available to every student.

The state should create a broad program that provides students with support in college. Call it the Earl Warren Program, after the California Supreme Court chief justice who wrote the historic desegregation opinion in Brown v. Board of Education case.

The new program could be open to all students and give them access to workshops, college readiness counselors, test prep, and support in writing and submitting college applications.

The program would not fall under the Trump administration’s “DEI initiative” because it would not target a specific ethnic or racial group, although it could focus on income range, first-generation status or some other disadvantage.

Instead of federal dollars, the new effort will be funded with what could be state tax revenue imposed on owners of second homes or part-time homes valued at $1 million or more.

That would be similar to Rhode Island’s “Taylor Swift tax,” which affects people who live most of each year elsewhere. This proposal would free up full-time residents while providing resources to help students thrive.

In a state where many people enjoy the benefits of California, nonresident homeowners must contribute to programs that make its communities strong.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.