Over the past decade, UC Merced admissions director Dustin Noji said the university has admitted an average of just three Fresno City College students per year.

But leaders at both schools want that number to grow exponentially in the next five years — more than 300-fold, to be exact.

UC Merced Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz joined Fresno City College President Robert Pimentel Monday morning outside the community college’s administration building to sign a new memorandum of understanding between the two campuses, creating a more robust pipeline for transfer students.

“UC Merced was created so that Valley kids could attend. I’m not sure if that’s happening right now,” Pimentel said, “but I’m sure that we could help. Our goal is to hopefully send (UC Merced) 1,000 students in the next five years.”

“In signing this agreement, we honor that original purpose,” Muñoz said, “that impelled (the) UC system to place its newest campus in the Central Valley.”

To aid Fresno City College students looking to transfer, the agreement promises a dedicated counselor for the city college campus who specializes in UC Merced admissions.

That counselor will be ready to answer FCC students’ questions about anything from financial aid to what courses they should be taking, said Kia Tan, the university’s Associate Director of Diversity Engagement and Transfer Initiatives.

The new position hasn’t been filled yet, Tan said, but the campuses ideally hope to identify that counselor by the spring.

City college students will also have more opportunities to visit UC Merced’s campus under the agreement.

Next summer, the goal is to send at least 50 Fresno City College students to Merced for a week, Pimentel told The Bee’s Education Lab. Students will have the opportunity to explore the campus and find out more about potential majors during their visit.

This isn’t Fresno City College’s only partnership of its kind, Pimentel added. The college has similar agreements in place with more local universities like Fresno State and Fresno Pacific University.

“We’re trying to show our students that there are other options for them,” he said, “and especially those who are majoring in math and science, engineering (and) biology.”

This isn’t UC Merced’s first partnership of its kind, either.

The MOU with Fresno City College mimics an existing agreement between the university and Merced College, which is the local community college in the city.

UC Merced has also partnered with nine K-12 districts in the Central Valley to create automatic admissions pipelines for students who complete certain requirements by the time they graduate from high school. Visalia Unified is the most recent district to join.

All these partners “share one vision,” Muñoz said, and that’s “to build a pathway, from kindergarten to the PhD, that doesn’t require you to leave the central San Joaquin Valley.”

The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Learn about The Bee’s Education Lab at its website.

This story was originally published October 31, 2022 at 3:05 PM.

Julianna Morano

The Fresno Bee

Julianna Morano covers early and K-12 education for The Fresno Bee’s Education Lab. Born and raised in Michigan, she attended college at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Previously, she worked as a features intern at The Dallas Morning News and an education and breaking news intern at The Virginian-Pilot.