High school students from the Long Beach Unified School District who attend Long Beach City College full-time immediately after graduation will be eligible for two years of free tuition starting fall 2019, it was announced Thursday, Nov. 15.

The second year of free tuition is an expansion of the Long Beach College Promise that began providing one full-year of free tuition in 2015. LBUSD students graduating from high school in 2019 will be the first class to be eligible for the second-year free tuition, LBCC spokeswoman Stacey Toda said.

“Thanks to the generosity of the LBCC Foundation, we will continue to grow our Long Beach College Promise and help LBUSD students by removing the financial barriers to higher education,” LBCC President Reagan Romali said in a statement.

The second year of tuition is being funded by the LBCC Foundation, which funds more than $1 million in student scholarships, faculty and staff grants, and other special projects each year, according to LBCC. The foundation has previously funded the first-semester and first-year tuition for students.

Started in 2008 as a collaboration between LBUSD, LBCC and Cal State Long Beach, the College Promise offered one tuition-free semester at LBCC and admission to Cal State Long Beach for students who stayed in school and graduated. But it grew to guaranteed Cal State Long Beach admission for LBUSD students who qualified directly from high school or LBCC.

Since the College Promise began, enrollment for Long Beach seniors to Cal State Long Beach increased 71 percent, and enrollment from LBCC to the university by 55 percent, according to LBUSD. And the four-year graduation rate of LBCC minority students who transfer to Cal State Long Beach increased 11 percent to 71 percent in 2008, and to 82 percent in 2013.

The city of Long Beach joined the College Promise in 2014 and the Port of Long Beach joined this year, followed by the launch of College Promise 2.0 – which strengthens the ability for LBCC students to transfer to Cal State Long Beach.