The Long Beach City College Foundation recently received a $1 million donation to go toward its Long Beach College Promise Scholarship, which provides qualified Long Beach Unified School District high school graduates a free first year of tuition at Long Beach City College.

The scholarship covers the $1,100 first-year tuition for local high school students who immediately enroll at LBCC after graduation. The scholarship is part of the Long Beach College Promise, a collaborative initiative started 10 years ago by LBUSD, LBCC and Cal State Long Beach that gives students the tuition scholarship at LBCC and guaranteed admission to Cal State Long Beach to those who qualify either directly from high school or from LBCC.

Currently, the LBCC Foundation allocates approximately $500,000 annually for the College Promise Scholarship.

“It’s a tremendous help to students,” LBCC Foundation Executive Director Elizabeth McCann said Thursday, July 5. “Even though community colleges are affordable, the cost is really prohibitive to a lot of students who come to our school.”

The LBCC College Promise Scholarship is designed to create an incentive for students to begin higher education immediately after graduation, and is especially vital for students who may be the first in their family to continue on to higher education, McCann said.

The donation, one of the largest in the foundation’s history, was a real estate gift of a residential property by a Long Beach couple who asked to remain anonymous. However, McCann shared that the couple attended LBUSD schools and are both alumni of LBCC and Cal State Long Beach, making them an “embodiment” of the Long Beach College Promise.

“They’re just a wonderful couple who wanted to support the students and don’t want any recognition at all for their generosity,” McCann said.

Although the College Promise Scholarship is dedicated solely to tuition, students can seek additional financial assistance for expenses such as books once they are enrolled at LBCC.