MONTEREY COUNTY — Cal State Monterey Bay’s College Corps will nearly triple in size and add two neighboring community colleges to its program after receiving a $9 million grant.
CSUMB was selected as a returning #CaliforniansForAll College Corps partner campus and lead institution in February.
The College Corps Fellowship, a partnership between the governor’s CA Volunteers initiative and AmeriCorps, awards up to $10,000 to individual high-need students who complete 450 hours of training and community service in one year. The goal of the program is to make college more affordable while students develop skills, grow professional networks and serve the community.
“College Corps students become civic actors supporting our local communities and learn that service is part of their lives, rather than just something they just do,” said CSUMB College Corps director Andrew Amorao.
The newly awarded $9 million grant builds on four years of College Corps at CSUMB, which has supported 227 fellows who have given approximately 81,000 hours of service to more than 30 community sites annually, according to Chrissy Hernandez, associate professor of the Service Learning Institute, which operates College Corps on campus.
This increased funding broadens CSUMB’s current College Corps consortium to include Monterey Peninsula College and Hartnell College. As the consortium’s lead institution for the program, CSUMB will increase its current cohort level of 70 students to 100 students each year for the next three years, while MPC and Hartnell will recruit 50 each.
“We are thrilled to expand the reach of CSUMB’s College Corps,” Hernandez said. “This is an incredible opportunity to strengthen transfer pipelines and help students graduate debt-free.”
