MESA helps small school become engineering powerhouse

Thanks to MESA, tiny Santa Paula High School in rural Ventura County has become one of the top feeder high schools for the UC Santa Barbara College of Engineering. MESA seniors now account for more than two dozen students enrolled as engineering majors, with more admitted for the approaching fall term.

With a population of 28,598 (71 percent of them Latino/Hispanic), Santa Paula residents have significantly a lower per-capita income ($15,736) and bachelor’s degree completion rate (14.7 percent) than those of California and the nation as a whole, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. In fact, the college completion rate for Santa Paula residents aged 25 and older is less than one third of the state and national percentages.

Santa Paula High School has a total of 1,580 students, of whom 82 percent are Latino/Hispanic and 21 percent are from migrant families. The school is designated by the California Department of Education as an underperforming school. Yet, since MESA was established at the school in 2002, the number of students successfully admitted to UC Santa Barbara in math-based fields has steadily increased.

“After four years of work, MESA has now become the driving force in cultivating a college-going culture in Santa Paula,” said UCSB MESA Center Director Bob Cota. “And our college of engineering is reaping the benefits of this work.” Last year saw the greatest growth in the number admitted from Santa Paula, with seven new enrollees.

One of those new Santa Barbara students is freshman María Medina, a UCSB mathematics major planning to enter the college’s electrical engineering program at the end of her sophomore year. Medina is among the first generation in her family to go to college. Her father is a truck driver who transports lemons, one of Santa Paula’s predominant agricultural products, between farms and produce distribution centers.

Doing the hands-on MESA projects and competing with other students really motivated and excited me to study math,” said Medina. “My MESA teacher was like my counselor, showing me which classes I needed to take and bringing us on university field trips to see what college was like. She helped us so much—I don’t think I would have made it to where I am without MESA.”

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