Los Angeles sixth-grader Alana Matthews thinks that someday she might like to be an astronaut. But on a recent morning, she was focused on a more immediate goal: tweaking the designs on a paper rocket to increase how long it could stay in the air.

“You don’t want to make it too heavy or that weighs it down," she said. "You want to make sure the tube is loose enough and the fins are properly in place.”

Matthews is one of 100 elementary and middle school students taking part in a new summer prog

As tens of thousands of University of California students cross the stage in graduation ceremonies this weekend, they will have much to celebrate in terms of goals accomplished, effort invested, knowledge gained.

But this special moment will carry even greater significance for about 350 members of the Class of 2019 who were formerly in the foster care system. These students have transcended monumental odds to achieve their college diplomas.

“If I could have told my 14-year-old self where I wou

For college-bound students across the country, May 1 marks an important date: the deadline for deciding which college they plan to attend in the fall.

But for Dinuba High School senior Jacob Rodriguez, and millions of others striving to be the first in their family to college, the day is about much more than a single decision. Being admitted to college is a hard-won milestone — one that makes his whole family and community proud.

The UC San Diego-bound senior sees college as opening doors to a

Kimberly Wong was just looking for a quick bit of advice on scholarship applications — and maybe a quiet place to eat her lunch — when she walked into Oakland High’s center for college and career counseling last fall.

What she got instead was a mentor, Thalia Rodriguez, who has been with her through every step of the college application process and pushed her to aim high.

“She convinced me not to settle for less, and really helped me to believe in myself,” said Wong, who was accepted at most o

As the child of farmworkers growing up amid the citrus groves of Orange County, UC Davis law professor Cruz Reynoso would get in trouble for skipping out on picking fruit to catch up on his studies.

“My mother complained to the neighbors — look at how lazy my boys turned out. Instead of being outside working they’re inside reading books,” Reynoso recalled.

The only boy in his class — a segregated school for Latino kids — to complete high school, Reynoso not only went on to finish college, but

Struggling with meth addiction since he was a young man, 52-year-old Stephen Maxey never saw himself as college material. The people of Merced saw otherwise.

Maxey landed in the Central Valley town six years ago, an out-of-work drifter, with nothing but the clothes on his back and a bus ticket back to Texas. Despite living on the streets, he enrolled in Merced College, part of the California Community College System, and ultimately transferred to UC Merced.

In May, cheered on by faculty, commu

At a time of year when students struggle to get back into the school routine, Pittsburg High junior Hayley Preston is hitting the books more confident in her studies and in her future than ever.

While many of her peers were sleeping in this summer, Preston was up in the wee hours, making the long commute by BART to the UC Berkeley campus. Rather than hanging out at the mall or working odd jobs, she spent the summer exploring literary texts, graphing trigonometric functions and learning her way