beginning in 2012, cal state fullerton's president mildred garcia initiated a strategic planning process to establish a metric driven plan to guide our institution towards the goal of becoming a national model for how becoming a public university can boost graduation rates through thoughtful efforts to keep students connected to their education and empowered on their way to a degree. i have detailed many of the relevant strategic plan activities in my written testimony but want to highlight several initiatives that might be of particular interest to the commission today. cal state fullerton is proud to house six trio and gear-up programs which consist of educational talent search, upward bound, two gear-up grants, student support services and the mcnair scholars program. educational talent search, upward bound and the two gear-up grants serve nearly 4500 students who attend local high schools with the highest need and schools that enroll the majority of their students in free and reduced lunch programs. these pre-college programs have a profound impact on the student participants and our

my president, mildred garcia often speaks about higher education being a private good and a public good. having just watch eded -- just finished commencement, i watched 60,000 family and friends celebrate the attainment of a college degree. when we raise productive families and contribute to uplifting communities. they're achieving the public good that higher education has to offer our society. it is our moral imperative to protect and institutionalize the programs to result in committable outcomes, not just equitable enrollment. this is one of the key civil rights issues of our time. commissioners, thank you for the student to testify today and i welcome any questions you might have. >> dr. hamilton. >> good morning, thank you for the opportunity to present before this important commission my signed task at the new school my assigned task was to examine the civil rights impact that higher education has on mobility. my comments are going to focus on the racial wealth gap and the lack of role. why focus on wealth? wealth is a paramount indy indicator of well being it provides opportunity