Helping transfer students close the higher education gap for 25 years

As a community college student balancing classes and working at a grocery store with dreams of pursuing a career in the creative arts, Curtis Baxter wasn't sure he was "UCLA material" - until his professor encouraged him to apply and connected him to the UCLA Center for Community College Partnerships.

"I found a space to connect with other like-minded individuals," said Baxter. "CCCP gathered brilliant minds and created this magical social contract of excellence held together by their staff and mentors."

Baxter transferred to UCLA, earned his bachelor's in African American studies in 2012 and a master of fine arts in film and television in 2015. He now works as a professional writer for animated television, comic books and video games.

Twenty-five years after its founding, CCCP has replicated that moment of possibility a thousand times over.

The transfer gap

The California Community College system is the largest in the country, serving more than 2.2 million students across 116 campuses. Yet, according to a 2024 report on California's systems of public higher education, only 21% of students who intended to transfer to a four-year institution did so within four years.

CCCP has been working to close that gap since 2001, when founding director Alfred Herrera launched the center under UCLA's Academic Advancement Program, building on a UC-funded transfer pilot program that began in 1999.

In 2024, CCCP became a standalone center and will continue expanding its outreach through the UCLA Downtown Los Angeles building. Today, it is directed by Claudia Salcedo, assistant vice provost for academic partnerships, and serves students from 105 of California's 116 community colleges.

"Community college is meant to be a pathway, but right now, it's a very complex one to navigate," said Santiago Bernal, associate director of CCCP. "Programs like CCCP help students decipher that process."

CCCP's impact

One of CCCP's foundational programs is CCCP Scholars, a yearlong UC transfer preparation program that motivates, informs and prepares California community college students to transfer to selective top-tier research universities, including UCLA. This year, 670 students representing 81 California community colleges are participating in the program.

Programming begins with one of four summer experiences, with both in-person and virtual options, where students are exposed to UC transfer requirements, research opportunities, university writing resources and additional support programs. Since CCCP's inception, more than 12,000 students have completed the CCCP Scholars program.

The results speak for themselves: In fall 2025, CCCP Scholars posted a 90% admit rate across the UC system and a 54% admit rate at UCLA, compared to the 23% UCLA admit rate for all transfer students. And starting this year, CCCP Scholars who enroll at UCLA will earn a $5,000 transfer scholarship.

CCCP's impact goes beyond its scholars program. Virtual webinars and meetings allow CCCP to expand its connection with community colleges throughout the state. They often host webinars centered on the transfer experience and process, including application critiques and bootcamps to help students prepare to respond to the UC Application's personal insight questions.

CCCP also brings community college students to UCLA's campus through conferences like the Puente Conference and campus visits hosted in partnership with community colleges. Campus visits generally include a transfer student panel, tour and admissions discussion. These opportunities are made possible by CCCP staff and a dedicated network of student volunteers.

During the 2024-25 academic year, more than 6,200 students connected with CCCP's programming through these resources; since its founding, over 100,000 students have been impacted. CCCP alumni have gone on to become teachers, doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and more - each carrying CCCP's mission into their careers and communities.

Click this link to watch an audio descriptive version of the video.

More than a transfer pathway

CCCP's approach is both academic and deeply personal, focused on building confidence and a sense of belonging alongside the practical tools for transfer success.

"The starting point is helping students see themselves at a place like UCLA, because so many have been told, explicitly or implicitly, that it's not for them," Bernal said.

For first-generation college student Llanet Martin, CCCP helped reframe how she understood her own potential.

"For the first time, I saw a community of students like me," Martin said. "I began to understand that my background was a source of strength."

She transferred to UCLA, went on to graduate school at Harvard, then returned to UCLA for her Ph.D. Now dean of equity, pathways and inclusion at Santa Monica College, Martin has spent her career working to create for others what CCCP created for her.

Rooted in community

For Salcedo, CCCP's success always comes back to its people.

"What makes CCCP special is when former participants come back to give back, sharing their experiences and supporting the next generation," Salcedo said. "That's where the real magic happens."

That spirit of giving back runs deep among CCCP alumni. The program's impact rarely stops at graduation - it ripples outward into families, professions and communities, carried forward by students who found not just a pathway to UCLA, but a place where they belonged.

Jewel Bourne was one of them. A first-generation student who graduated from UCLA in 2006 with degrees in English and gender studies, she describes CCCP as the program that made her believe higher education was a space for her.

"Walking across that stage at UCLA was not just a celebration of my academic journey," she said. "It was a celebration of my family's legacy, our collective perseverance and the promise that my accomplishments would open doors for others."

She went on to earn her Ph.D. in higher education from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2026 and works as a program coordinator with UCLA College Corps, part of a statewide initiative to create debt-free pathways to college.

"CCCP is far more than a transfer pathway program," said Yazmin Gonzalez, who graduated from UCLA with a bachelor's in Latin American studies in 2016 and a master's in the same field in 2017. "It is an intergenerational disruptor that expands what is possible not only for individual students, but for their families, their communities and the populations they will one day serve."

Gonzalez is currently the inaugural director of programs for student success in Caltech's division of engineering and applied science. She is also pursuing a doctor of education in educational leadership at UCLA and is set to graduate this June.

The next 25 years

As CCCP looks to the future, its leaders are focused on deepening the center's research and policy infrastructure with plans to hire an executive director of research and policy, establish a faculty advisory committee and launch a CCCP alumni council. Even as CCCP aims to expand its reach, its guiding mission remains unchanged.

"We are a program that exists to hopefully not exist one day," Bernal said. "Because that would mean students have a clear, accessible pathway to transfer to a four-year university."

Until then, CCCP will keep showing students the way.