<p>Today UC Board of Regents announced they will raise rates 8% for fall 2011, but they will also expand the Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan to families earning less than $80,000 a year.</p>
<p>That’s awesome!</p>
<p>About 4x my broke ass trailer trash family’s income! WOohoo!</p>
<p>GAY! this sucks for me cause I’m from a single mother family, she makes about 180,000 a year but works like 3-4 jobs and supports 3 kids with barely any savings (she has maybe 80k saved up, but she really wanted to buy a new house). My moms never going to get a break :/, she’s been working 3 jobs her whole life. I’m wondering, my mom and dad are divorced and my dad is mentally ill and gets social security. How easy is it to say I live with my dad so I can get a 0 EFC and financial aid?</p>
<p>If you do not live with your dad but claim that you do in order to obtain financial aid you could be criminally prosecuted for fraud and sentenced to prison.</p>
<p>Even if he does live with his dad, his mom’s income still counts into his EFC until he’s 24. </p>
<p>And please. If your mom makes $180k a year, supporting 3 kids is easy. I grew up with a single mom and 4 siblings and we lived on around $40k a year until I was 18 and moved out (and this is in one of the most expensive regions of the country, mind you.) The Blue and Gold plan is designed for kids who wouldn’t be able to afford college otherwise, it’s not a free ride for anyone who wants it. These numbers aren’t created arbitrarily, and someone who has $80k in savings and pulls in $180k a year is more than double what the Board of Regents sets as the income max for Blue and Gold… and there’s a reason for that. You’re still eligible for federal grants/loans, you just don’t get all your tuition covered.</p>
<p>^Thank you for saying something Grimes99. I’ve seen nabilesmail post that same pity party story and I can’t help but not feel sorry for someone voluntarily working 3-4 jobs to make $180k a year.</p>
<p>I’m offended @ the gay comment. I’m gay and I really hate when ppl use the word in the way you did. Pathetic!</p>
<p>Thanks for saying that SMCGuy! I was offended as well. :/</p>
<p>How do you work 3-4 jobs, anyway? That’s an average of around $45k-$60k per job and, well, there are only so many hours in a week. Part time jobs don’t pay $45k-$60k and even if they did, there’s no way the amount of hours required would allow you to work 3-4. Unless your mom doesn’t sleep… like, at all. People work 2-3 jobs if they’re barely scraping by and a missed shift means a missed dinner for the family. You don’t add another job to go from $120k to $180k.</p>
<p>Does anyone know how much, if at all, the Blue and Gold program provides for housing?</p>
<p>@Koreo: Nothing. Blue + Gold is for tuition and student services. You can still get housing assistance with other grants/loans.</p>
<p>Ah, gotcha. Are there grants available other than Cal/Pell? Because Blue and Gold covers what those grants don’t cover in regards to tuition, right?</p>
<p>Cal/Pell covers other things as well. It can help with housing/books, but not by a whole lot. My EFC is zero and I got about $3k offered to me on top of tuition (per year) last year. </p>
<p>You also get federally subsidized loans offered to you, so while you’re in school the federal government will pay the interest, which saves you a lot of money.</p>
<p>That’s actually great news. I thought I’d be having to pay the entire cost of housing and books out of pocket. Woo for grants.</p>
<p>Yeah I think the entire amount of aid awarded to me from UCI last year was a tick below $23k. $10k of that was the subsidized loan variety, but the rest was grants.</p>
<p>Hot diggity dawg!</p>
<p>Awesome; hahaha!</p>
<p>I apologize in advance for resurrecting an old thread, but I have a question about the raise to the 80k cap.</p>
<p>I spent freshman year at CC
transfered to UC Davis sophomore year
Spent my junior year(this current academic year) at CC</p>
<p>I had gone back to CC because I didn’t want to take on the rather significant loans I would have had to if I stayed at Davis, since my parents make just over 70k. </p>
<p>Now from what I see on the UC website, it says that a student must…
“Be in your first four years as a UC undergraduate (first two for transfer students)”</p>
<p>Since I transfered as A sophomore to Davis, would this exclude me from benefitting from the blue and gold plan? Or would I only be able to benefit from 1 of the 2 years I have left?</p>
<p>You have a very unique situation. I’m not sure what you’ll be considered, since you likely still have two years left at a UC–you haven’t started upper division coursework. Best to contact the UC’s financial aid office.</p>