<p>I have a decent GPA (3.97 UW/4.25 W/ 4.375 CP) and two brothers in college...how much money could I get from Cal Grant A considering I live in a fairly high-income family...?</p>
<p>Cal Grant A For Dependent Students</p>
<p>2007-08 CAL GRANT PROGRAM INCOME CEILINGS
Family size:
Six or more $84,600
Five $78,400
Four $73,200
Three $67,400
Two $65,800</p>
<p>2007-08 CAL GRANT PROGRAM ASSET CEILINGS $56,600</p>
<p>Also note that everyone who meets the income, asset, and academic criteria is NOT awarded a grant. My daughter qualified, but did not have points for sociological factors like first generation college student, english language learner, single parent family, etc. so did not receive a grant.</p>
<p>It was very disappointing to view her page one day as saying "meets qualification for Cal Grant A" and then to find out that, no, actually she would not be getting any money because of the way the qualifying students are ranked and the fact that there isn't enough money for everyone.</p>
<p>my3girls</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing .... I thought Cal Grant was strictly based on finances and had no idea that they also factored in sociological factors.</p>
<p>FresnoMom, I was really surprised too. I also thought it was strictly finances. But when my daughter's online status went from "qualifies for $13000 (private school) Cal Grant", to "no grant awarded" I called and was given the above explanation. Somehow there is a scoring system based on this other stuff that ranks those who qualify and they go down the list until the money runs out.</p>
<p>Whoa- I had no idea that's how it worked. I, too, thought it was all or nothing, either you get it or not. Sounds more like the Byrd scholarship wherein they rank every nominee in the state and move down the list until they run out of money.</p>
<p>That is odd, too, because, how do they know how much money they have to pass out given the incomig freshman deciding between public v private schools? What about students who drop out and do not take their final years of grants? Can you check back each year?</p>
<p>I tried to find the email they sent me, but I must have deleted it (it was in the spring of 2006!). I remember being very surprised (and a bit annoyed) because there wasn't anything in any of the Cal Grant materials that indicated that even if you met all the requirements you might not get one. Fortunately my daughter's college provided a large institutional grant so it worked out for us.</p>
<p>my3girls:</p>
<p>Are you sure you were seeing a Cal Grant award? Max Cal Grant, even for privates, is under 10K.</p>
<p>yes it was Cal Grants, I may be remembering the amount wrong. Quite possible.</p>
<p>Ok, this was bugging me so I did some digging at the calgrants.org site. They seem to have made a change since 06 and divided up the grants a little differently. What my D applied for would now be called a "competitive grant "(since she was a transfer from an out of state school to a CA school) and they say this about the competitive grants (they did not have this distinction on anything public in 06):</p>
<p>The California Student Aid Commission and its Grant Advisory Committee held extensive public meetings to formulate the selection criteria that would be used to select the 11,250 Competitive Cal Grant recipients for the 2006-07 award year. California statute directed that the Commission stress the selection of eligible applicants who find it difficult to pursue an education beyond high school. </p>
<p>The Commission received nearly 387,000 on-time applications for the 11,250 awards. Over 96,000 of these applicants demonstrated financial need for an award. To determine eligibility for an award, an applicant's GPA and income were used in the Commission's computation. However, these two areas were not the only criteria used for selection. In addition to the GPA and income, scoring criteria also included parents’ education levels, household status, the high school the applicant attended and the number of years since the applicant attended high school. </p>
<p>So it does appear that if you are applying to college directly from a CA high school or within one year, $ and gpa are the criteria. They are now calling these entitlement grants. If you aren't, then the other stuff comes into play. </p>
<p>And yes, the amount would have been around $9500.</p>