CLU receives $100,000 Wal-Mart grant

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The residential Summer Bridge Program has aided first-generation freshmen at CLU for seven years.

(THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – Aug. 13, 2008) The Council of Independent Colleges has selected California Lutheran University to receive a $100,000 Wal-Mart grant to help CLU build on its success in enrolling, retaining and graduating first-generation college students.

The Thousand Oaks university was one of only 20 institutions selected to receive the Wal-Mart College Success Award, which is intended to help universities that are already deeply committed to the education of first-generation students. More than 200 colleges, representing more than one-third of the membership in CIC, applied for the grants. CLU is the only California recipient.

The colleges selected have developed programs that result in higher percentages of graduates among their first-generation college students than the national average, and many graduate first-generation students at the same rate as all other students.

Nationwide only 24 percent of first-generation college students succeed in earning a bachelor’s degree compared with 68 percent of students whose parents received a bachelor’s degree, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Of the first-generation college students who entered CLU in 2002, 75 percent graduated within five years. Each year, between 35 and 40 percent of the new students at CLU are first-generation.

Since 1990, CLU has worked to increase the retention and graduation rates of these students through its Student Support Services Program. The residential Summer Bridge Program has aided first-generation freshmen at CLU for seven years.

CLU is the only institution that plans to specifically target transfer students with the Wal-Mart grant. The initiative will strengthen efforts to improve academic preparation and transition, integration into the university community, and exploration of career and graduate school options. The award will allow CLU to include transfer students in the Summer Bridge Program and provide additional scholarship assistance for them. In addition, a liaison will be appointed to improve relationships with local community colleges and increase recruitment of first-generation transfer students. A professor in the School of Business, the most popular major at CLU, will also assist with the initiative.

The Wal-Mart College Success Awards program is administered by the Council of Independent Colleges and made possible by a grant from the Wal-Mart Foundation.