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EXTENDED OPPORTUNITY PROGRAM and SERVICES (EOP&S)

The EOP&S program is a state-funded program of support services which are designed to be above and beyond the scope of other services offered by the college. These services are specifically designed for students who are economically and educationally disadvantaged.

HISTORY OF EOP&S

In the 1960's diverse communities across California were in turmoil because of the belief that minorities were not being extended the same opportunities to an equal education that non-minorities had long been receiving. People believed that high schools did not treat minorities with the same respect that non-minorities received, and it was a widespread belief that minorities were not being provided the same opportunities to attend colleges and universities.

In Los Angeles, Latino, students staged massive "walkouts" to demonstrate their concerns. Parents and community members joined in these walkouts and similar demonstrations spread across California and into other states.

While this was occurring, students who were in colleges and universities (Black, Asian, Native Americans, and Mexican American students alike), were demonstrating on college campuses and in the streets of their communities, demanding the colleges and universities to open their doors to more minorities. Students took over buildings on college campuses as protest to colleges limiting equal educational access to minorities, and community activists marched by the hundreds in the streets to demonstrate their concern and their support of students protesting on the college campuses.

Together, college student protests and community activist marches led to the national media (radio, television, and newspaper) bringing attention to the need for equal educational access across the whole nation. The state and federal government could no longer ignore the discrimination that was taking place in educational institutions that received millions of state and federal dollars to help construct buildings, pay for salaries, and provide college financial aid. Initially, they tried to end the student demonstrations by sending in the State National Guard and/or Federal troops, but that did not stop the protests or the demonstrations. It only served to focus even more attention on the lack of equal educational access in colleges and universities.

Finally, in 1969, Assemblyman Alfred Alquis, a Democrat from San Jose, California, authored Assembly Bill 164, which allocated money to create the Extended Opportunity Program and Services (EOP&S) in the California community college campuses. This legislation made available state dollars to develop programs which would provide community college access to thousands of students disadvantaged by social, economic, or linguistic circumstances. This legislation created what 30 years later is still known as the Extended Opportunity Program and services (EOP&S) on 108 college campuses across the state of California.

The purpose of the EOP&S program is to provide you, the student, with an opportunity to
Participate in a community college program of study. It is also the intent of the EOP&S program to provide eligible students with services that may enhance the possibility of such student's success in the completion of a specific college transfer goal, certificate of completion or college degree.