UC President Janet Napolitano visits students at Cabrillo College

University of California President Janet Napolitano met with 80 community college students at Cabrillo College in Aptos this morning.

UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal and Cabrillo College President Laurel Jones joined Napolitano to deliver the message that a UC education is accessible for community college transfer students.

Students from Cabrillo College, Hartnell College in Salinas and Gavilan College in Gilroy will also hear from UC Santa Cruz professor of astrophysics Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz about the educational and research opportunities available to UC students. Ramirez-Ruiz is part of a team of astronomers and physicists that was the first to capture images of gravitational waves produced by colliding black holes, part of the groundbreaking Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) project.

Around 30 percent of UC undergraduates begin their education at a community college. More than 21,000 in-state transfer students were offered a spot on at least one of UC’s nine undergraduate campuses for fall 2017.

Napolitano and Blumenthal will also talk about financial aid that can put a UC education within reach. More than half of UC’s California undergraduates pay no tuition thanks to the university’s Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan, which covers the full cost of tuition for students who are eligible for financial aid and whose families earn $80,000 a year or less.