Free tuition to be offered at Hartnell College for first year students

A big announcement from Hartnell College Wednesday.

First year students are set to get free tuition for the upcoming school year. It’s part of a statewide move to bring free tuition to community colleges.

Many Central Coast students have an especially hard time financing their education.

“Students here at Hartnell College have a hard time paying for the college classes themselves, mostly because there’s low income families, here in Salinas,” student Erika Padilla said.

Now thanks to what’s called the Salinas Valley Promise, first year college students are getting help with a tuition free year of school.

“You have to be a full-time student, you have to have graduated from one of the high schools in the Hartnell Community College district,” said Dr. Willard Lewallen, Superintendent and President at Hartnell, “You have to have had at least a 2.5 GPA, and you have to apply for financial aid along with applying for the Salinas Valley Promise as well.”

Third year student, Erika Padilla is happy a program like Salinas Valley Promise will be in place for first year students.

“[It would have helped] a whole lot,” she said, “My first year was in 2016, I would have wished that we had it back then.”

Eighty-five percent of students are already getting free tuition through various programs at Hartnell. But superintendent and president Dr. Willard Lewallen says this is just the start of even more help.

“We certainly want to reach that other 15 percent and help them but [also] those that are already having their fees waived,” Lewallen said, “We want to provide something else for them, particularly help with books even though they have their fees waived because that’s often more expensive than their enrollment fees.”

That part of the Salinas Valley Promise won’t take effect this year but the work is already being done to have it in place next year.

“It’s going to take us some time to do that,” Lewallen said, “We have to raise some money and all those other things that come along with that but we’re really good at that, we’ve demonstrated that for many years.”

The Salinas Valley Promise is funded through private donations, grants and Governor Brown’s California Promise initiative.

Hartnell isn’t the only Central Coast college implementing free first year tuition, Cabrillo College also recently announced plans to do the same.