Since its founding in 1966, the Educational Opportunity Program has led efforts on campus to provide students with a multifaceted educational support system grounded in inclusion and empowerment.
In doing so, Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) has helped establish a number of programs still used by UC Santa Barbara students, such as Campus Learning Assistance Services and Early Academic Outreach Program. EOP also sponsors cultural centers on campus including the African diasporic Cultural Resource Center, American Indian and Indigenous Cultural Resource Center, Asian Resource Center, Chicanx/Latinx Cultural Resource Center and Middle Eastern, North African, South Asian Resource Center.
Aaron Jones has been the director of EOP for the past eight years, prior to which he worked in Associated Students for 14 years. Jones holds two degrees from UCSB – a bachelor’s degree in Black studies and political science, and a master’s degree in education – and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in education at UCSB’s Gevirtz Graduate School of Education. Over the course of his undergraduate career from 1989 to 1994, Jones was an EOP student himself.
“The purpose of EOP was … to provide opportunities and support resources for students who historically have been denied such opportunities to attend an institution of higher education,” Jones said of EOP’s founding mission.
Since the program’s inception, Jones believes that the scope of EOP’s work has broadened. The proposal and eventual passage of Proposition 209 in 1996 — which prohibited consideration of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in programs within areas of public education, employment and programming — brought about a notable change to the program.
“One of the three [previous] criteria for being a member of EOP was ruled illegal with the passage of 209,” Jones said. “So previously, the criteria was first-generation, income eligibility and/or being from an underrepresented minority. My parents went to college, I was not first gen. We were solidly middle class, I was not on financial aid. But because I came from the underrepresented minority, I was eligible to be in EOP. So that’s changed after 1996 … our focus, really specifically, but not exclusively, is on first generation and what we call income-eligible students, which currently is about 35% of the undergraduate student population.”
Eligibility for EOP membership is determined when students fill out their UC application. If a student’s parents or legal guardians have not attained a bachelor’s degree in the U.S. or if a student meets income criteria based on the Cal Grant ceiling, set forth annually by the California Student Aid Commission, they are automatically invited to EOP following their acceptance into UCSB. If a UCSB student doesn’t meet either of these criteria, they can still join EOP as an associate member.
EOP offers two one-week, residential summer bridge programs to incoming EOP students: Summer Transitional Enrichment Program (S.T.E.P.) for freshmen and Summer Transfer Transition Program (STTP) for transfer students. Over the past 10 years, both programs have been offered for free as a result of the Undergraduate Student Success Grant through the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost. Prior to the grant, S.T.E.P. participants were charged based on their Expected Family Contribution (EFC), a metric that has since been replaced by Student Aid Index (SAI) as the standard measure of financial need.
Established in 1977, S.T.E.P.’s programming has a shared emphasis on academic preparation, personal growth and fostering connections with other students and EOP staff. During their week on campus, S.T.E.P. students also become more familiar with navigating campus and accessing resources at UCSB.
EOP counselor and coordinator Luther Richmond graduated from UCSB with a bachelor’s degree in communication in 2007 before attaining his master’s degree in counseling from San José State University in 2010. Subsequently, he returned to UCSB as the director of the American Indian Scholars Program at the Office of Education Partnerships, where he also worked for a year between getting his bachelor’s degree and pursuing his master’s. Richmond joined the EOP staff in December 2013. Like Jones, he participated in S.T.E.P. prior to his freshman year at UCSB.
“We want students to create their networks of support, see themselves on campus, feel a sense of belonging and not only know where to go on campus, but who to go to in those departments before they even get here,” Richmond said.
Incoming EOP freshmen’s enrollment in S.T.E.P. generally isn’t affected by overall EOP enrollment; instead, the number of students that S.T.E.P. can accommodate, as well as the duration of the program itself, largely depends on the funding the program receives.
“When I did S.T.E.P. it was a two-week program, and I think there were, like, 230 students, because they had the budget for all that,” Richmond said. “In 2008 there was the financial crisis. And then that kind of came to a head in 2011. That’s when they made the decision to take a week off and turn it into a one-week program … And so from 2013 to 2024, really, our goal was always to try to get 175 students, because that’s what we had allocated for. This past year we had to reduce, and our target was 130 students. So it’s really mainly reflected in the budgetary situation.”
Although funding from the Undergraduate Student Success Grant allows both S.T.E.P. and STTP to be offered for free, additional financial support for the programs allows EOP to not only sustain current programming but also look into expanding their capacity to engage more incoming students. Additional financing can come from extramural funding or reducing current program expenses. EOP’s goal, ultimately, is to find a sustainable source of funding.
“For 2026 we’re actually seeking some support from the Student Fee Advisory Committee,” Jones said. “We’re hopeful that they’ll help us for 2026 and also give us time to figure out what 2027 and beyond is going to look like in terms of funding for S.T.E.P.”
S.T.E.P. and STTP are the analogous predecessors to the Freshman Summer Start Program (FSSP) and Transfer Edge, respectively. FSSP, like S.T.E.P., is a residential program offered to all incoming freshmen. Unlike S.T.E.P., FSSP is six weeks long, offers academic credit to participants, does not give priority to EOP students and is not free for participants.
“Anecdotally, what I’ve seen is … comparing the EOP S.T.E.P. students to the EOP FSSP students, their SAI or their EFC are usually lower for S.T.E.P. [students],” Richmond said. SAI replaced EFC as the standard measure of financial need in the 2024-25 award year.
Jones also noted that not all students are able or inclined to attend a six-week program over the summer.
“Some students work during the summer, or some students may not have the capacity to be able to go to a six-week program. They may have other obligations. Or vice versa: some students may be ready to go … [they] can get a jump on [their] graduation requirements,” Jones said. “I think it just really just depends, but we do take that into consideration for our S.T.E.P. and STTP participants who are often driven to the program by their parents or their guardians, who have to take time off to do that … Especially for first-generation students, not everybody can just bounce for six weeks.”
In line with its purpose of being a holistic introduction to the undergraduate experience, S.T.E.P.’s programming comprises academic, community and residential components. During the week that a student participates in S.T.E.P., they live in residence halls, take a writing course, attend seminars on personal growth and academic best practices and partake in social activities, which include a talent show and a beach day.
Queen Allah, a third-year sociology major with a minor in applied psychology, attended S.T.E.P. as an incoming freshman. In the summers of 2024 and 2025, she worked with S.T.E.P. as a resident assistant.
“I thought [S.T.E.P.] was going to be the run-of-the-mill, orientation-adjacent spiel [or] overflow of information … people telling you about all these things without really taking the time to explain how you access them,” Allah said. “The people [at S.T.E.P.] poured into you so you could have the confidence to ask for help. I think that was the most valuable thing because it’s really hard. And it’s a scary thing to do, to ask for help, especially as an incoming freshman to this big school where people don’t look like you, where people are not from the same sort of income background as you.”
In addition to her involvement with EOP, Allah is also the co-chair of the Black Women’s Health Collaborative (BWHC) within Associated Students. She attributed the confidence to seek out the former co-chair of BWHC at a mentorship program to the ways in which S.T.E.P. normalized asking for guidance on campus.
“S.T.E.P. puts a magnifying glass on your experience — and that’s necessary,” Allah said. “I would hope people know that just because it doesn’t pertain to you doesn’t mean it’s not making a word-class impact on your classmate, or the person next to you or your neighbor.”
Seba Mohamed, a second-year psychological & brain sciences major who was also a S.T.E.P. Resident Assistant in the summer of 2025, found S.T.E.P.’s multifaceted approach to academic preparedness helpful, especially because of its shared focus on campus resources and interpersonal networking.
“It’s like something you carry with you. I feel like it never leaves throughout undergrad. You’ll always run into another Stepper and … it kind of broadens your connections within people at this university … I’m a big believer [that] it’s not always about what you know but who you know. It can open different doors,” Mohamed said.
Richmond shared a similar thought vis-a-vis retention rates for EOP S.T.E.P. students.
“One of the main things is that network of support. It really keeps students [at UCSB],” Richmond said. “A lot of people really link up with a lot of people in S.T.E.P., and so there’s 150, 175 other people who have this other experience with you.”
“I’ve noticed that S.T.E.P. students in their first year, they’re using their resources at a much higher rate, I feel,” Richmond added. “They’re less hesitant to ask for support and that’s what really keeps them into their second year.”
Early exposure to academic resources can also help students become well acquainted with how to use them optimally throughout their college careers.
“I see a lot of positive thinking around major changes – early on, or in their second and third year. So I think that the students who are using their resources and going to counseling and figuring out what it is that they really like, by kind of hearing themselves talk it out with a counselor, I think that’s why those [graduation] rates go up,” Richmond said.
“A big misconception is that students who … are failing or something come into EOP,” Richmond said. “At this point, we have students thriving. A majority of students who get awards at the end of the year are EOP students and S.T.E.P. participants. And I think that’s really special, because we really help students thrive and not just get by.”
Looking ahead, Jones aspires to expand EOP’s reach to incoming students at UCSB. Notably, a clear, existing indicator of EOP’s historically widespread impact on campus is present in the fact that many institutions at UCSB are former functions of EOP that now operate as their own departments.
“A lot of the institutions that you see that exist today are a direct result of EOP,” Jones said. “So Campus Learning Assistance Services actually used to be a function of the Education Opportunity Program until it became its own department. Early Academic Outreach, for example, used to be a function of EOP. EOP used to actually go and do outreach to bring students, to recruit students. So now that’s its own department. Financial aid is now, of course, its own entity … The first peer mentors on campus were EOP peer mentors.”
Additional resources would help fortify S.T.E.P. for future cohorts of students. Increased funding could allow the program to be a week or two longer, which may make it long enough to be unit-bearing and potentially also give students more time to deepen the connections they make during their first week at S.T.E.P.
“The heart-centered approach for student success is, in my opinion, universal. And it’s not rocket science. It’s not hard. We know the formula that works … the first ingredient of that formula is our summer bridge programs. And then we’re able to kind of build upon that,” Jones said. “If I had double the resources, I still couldn’t serve half of the EOP students, but we know what we have that works, and resources are always a challenge. Fortunately, we have campus partners that are of a similar mindset … and similar goals and values.”
“We’re able to work collaboratively across the campus, across divisions and throughout various departments to do this work,” Jones said. “Many of us, myself included, are the results of that work, the recipients of that work from previous years, even at this institution, and are committed to doing that work.”
