SAN MARCOS ---- College students intent on becoming teachers may be able to get help paying the cost of earning their credentials this summer in a Cal State San Marcos program aimed at increasing diversity in the profession, officials said Monday.

The program, formally known as the Teacher Diversity Project Summer Institute, could provide stipends of about $1,000 to about 25 students with financial need as the CSU system seeks to recruit a diverse pool of people for careers in education.

Drawing from a share of the state lottery proceeds, the San Marcos program has some $75,000 for direct aid to college students and for programs aimed to encourage those in high school to consider teaching as a career.

This summer, financially hard-pressed students could get their books paid for and their fees covered for two introductory courses that are required for entering the teacher credentialing program at CSUSM's College of Education. The courses orient students to the types of jobs offered in K-12 education and sensitize them to issues raised by teaching children from varied backgrounds and cultures.

The month-long summer session is scheduled to begin May 24.

As for next year, CSU spokeswoman Colleen Bentley-Adler said it's still not clear whether teacher recruitment programs will be part of the final state budget.

Added Juan Necochea, a professor of education at San Marcos and co-director of the project with professor Gilbert Valadez, "This is one of the programs that's always under the axe."

Necochea said the recruitment program aims to add diversity, especially at the elementary grades, where teaching staffs are disproportionately white, middle class and female.

"The intent," he said in an interview Monday, "is to attract students, beginning with high school and undergraduate school, in an effort to make the teaching force more reflective of the state's demographics ... The impression is that as much as we can, the teaching force should reflect the demographics of the state."

Noting that an Anglo teacher may do as good a job as a Latino teacher in inspiring Latino children, Necochea said that anyone from either gender and any ethnic group can qualify, provided the student states a sincere interest in pursuing a teaching career and still ends up short of having enough money for school even after exhausting other possibilities for financial aid.

Added colleague Valadez, "The other way we look at diversity is their experience with diverse populations, such as whites who speak another language or who grew up in another country."

Necochea said the program helps many students "caught in the middle," that is, from families with too much income to qualify for full financial aid but not enough to fully cover the bills for college and the fifth year it takes to earn a teaching credential.

"Our effort," Necochea said, "is to inspire students to contemplate teaching."