She is dismayed that California's Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, an immigrant himself, has proposed eliminating the state funding for the University of California and California State University's outreach programs that have assisted disadvantaged students, including immigrants, since 1976.

Due to previous budget cuts, Willow Glen High School is the only school in the San Jose Unified School District that has retained the program.

"Unless a miracle occurs by Jan. 4, we will not have any outreach," Mahood said, adding that the school will lose six college counselors.

The Early Academic Outreach Program provides academic counseling, student advisers and campus visits for middle and high school students who are first-generation college bound, from low-income backgrounds and meet GPA requirements.

Although the program only formally enrolls 45 students per grade level and has been at Willow Glen High School for six years, its "impact is not statistically measurable," Mahood said.

She added that the counselors from UC­Santa Cruz who have worked at the high school have been "really generous" and have allowed anyone who wanted help with college preparation to participate.

The outreach program at the high school had six counselors available—four from the UC system for a total of 35 hours a week and two from the CSU system for a total of 8 hours a week—to monitor grades and classes and help students with their college essays.

For some, like 17-year-old Claudia Gasca, the program was a way to get answers. The first in her family to apply to college, she was eager to learn about different universities and signed up for the outreach program in sixth grade.

"I saw my family struggle and I had a goal to go to college to be someone in life and help my family," Gasca said.

She said meeting with college-student interns motivated her to fulfill all her college requirements because she had a personal contact with someone who had gone through the same process.

"I thought you just chose a school and got to go there," Gasca said.

She added that if she had not had the extra knowledge and support, she would have likely gone straight to community college.

Daisy Vergara, 17, also appreciated having someone to talk to and to answer questions.

"They led me step by step since freshman year," she said.

For other students, the program expanded their horizons.

Omar Gutierrez, 17, was planning on going to San José State University and living at home because of the financial burden of going away to college.

He said the counselors "motivated me to get around being low-income" and to look for financial aid.

Once he learned about available services and grants, he said he told his other Latino friends, who were planning on going to community college, about the program and what it offered.

It was assistance with her college applications and essays that made a difference for 18-year-old An Vo.

"I knew I'd get through it, but their help opened more doors and heightened my possibility of getting in," Vo said.

She added that the school's one district-assigned counselor could never have helped as many students individually as the six counselors who were provided through the UC program.

Now the governor is proposing an $85 million cut to the outreach budget, and although it only represents less than 1 percent of the $2.9 billion UC budget, UC statistics show that 30 percent of African American and 33 percent of Latino freshmen now attending UCs participated in the outreach program.

"It works better than affirmative action because kids are prepared," Mahood said.

She added that the loss of educational outreach will negatively impact the diversity in higher education.

"It hits our district harder because it's not like we have a fallback," Mahood said.

Vo said the cuts will not only hurt students at her school and in the district, but across the state.

"In the long run we'll lose a lot," she said. "[Gov. Schwarzenegger] wants to promote education, but I don't see the point of rescuing the economy by cutting education."

To see a sample letter to state leaders urging them not to cut the outreach budget, visit http://epc.ucsc.edu/funding.html.