When the Sweetwater Union High School District and Alliant International Univesity forged a partnership last July, the idea was to bring the first four-year university to the South Bay.
But several community members, including a few elected officials, were against the deal.
Opponents argued that the tuition cost at Alliant was not affordable for its students in the region, others said the school district was pusrsuading its students to enroll in the college and not letting students decide on their own.
The National City Planning Commission ultimately halted Sweetwater’s plan to house Alliant on the campus of the National city Adult School, when the commission said the school district failed to obtain a conditional use permit.
Through all the controversy, Alliant sophomores and Sweetwater cohorts, Rejeanna Gardner, Briana Casillas and Priscilla Ramos decided that Alliant was the college for them.
“I think that I made the right choice,” said Gardner, who is a Sweetwater High School alumna, majoring in child development at Alliant.
Gardner said she likes Alliant because unlike community colleges and public universities she doesn’t have to take many general education courses.
She said she started taking classes in her major almost immediately.
Since the plans to bring an Alliant campus failed, the three college students wait outside a Sweetwater High School in the early morning to get on a 11-passenger bus provided by Alliant. That van is there way to Alliant’s main campus in Scripps Ranch.
University President Dr. Geoffrey Cox said in an e-mail that Alliant will provide transportation.
“Alliant remains commited to offering an afforfable four-year college option to students in the Sweetwater District, as well as throughout the San Diego area,” he said in the email. “We are continuing to offer transportation from the South Bay to our Scripps Ranch campus…”
Gardner said taking the 40-minute van ride from Sweetwater to Scripps Ranch three times a week does not bother her.
“I don’t mind it because I’m not wasting my gas going all the way up to school,” she said.
She said the bus ride also provides her with the opportunity to get to know her fellow schoolmates.
“It actually gives us time to actually socialize with people that are actually going to school with us,” she said.
Ramos graduated from Hilltop High School and first became aware of Alliant at a meeting on Hilltop High’s campus that include a representative from the university.
Ramos had also been accepted to California State University, San Marcos, but decided not to attend because of the long-distance.
“Alliant wasn’t my first option,” Ramos said. “I did not know what Alliant was, never heard of the school.”
She said the information she received from the meeting convinced her that Alliant was the school for her.
“I don’t regret that day,” she said about attending the meeting and learning about the college she now attends.
Ramos, also a child development major, said she likes Alliant because it is not too far or too close from home.
She said the Alliant staff is always willing to help her and that tutoring for her is always accessible to her.
The controversy surrounding from opponents of the Alliant at Sweetwater partnership didn’t deter the three students from enrolling in Alliant.
According to its website, the cost to attend Alliant for the 2014-2015 school year as an undergraduate is $660 per unit, per semester. That means a full-time student pays about $15,840 in tuition a year.
Ramos said she doesn’t pay out-of-pocket for tuition because her financial aid and grants cover the cost.
She said only pays for textbooks and materials she may need.
Casillas said she had originally planned to study at Southwestern College, that was until she learned about Alliant from one of her teachers at Chula Vista High School.
Casillas is spending the fall 2015 semester studying abroad in Germany.
Casillas said she enjoys the learning environment at Alliant because it is a smaller school student population wise compared to that of Southwestern College, which she said provides an opportunity for her to do better with her school work.
“(At Alliant) I felt like I was going to focus more and do better,” she said.
Casillas said she is doing better academically in college where she has a 3.5 grade point average than she was in high school where her GPA was 2.6.
Ramos took out a loan to cover her first semester of college because she didn’t meet the GPA for financial aid.
She said now in her sophomore year, she gets financial aid now to help with her education.
Ramos declined to say how much financial aid she gets but said it was enough to cover tuition expenses. She also did not provide how much she took out in student loans.
Ramos said she feels that Alliant doesn’t take away from the college experience,
“They don’t have sports (teams) is like the college experience,” she said.” But throughout everything else to me it feels like the college experience.”
