<p>Hi, we have a very low income family, literally 22,000 a year with 4 people. I got a 2.95 on my Cal Grant and it only ended up giving me $1,500 of grant, which is not going to help me much since UC is like $30,000. Well, I was thinking is everyone eligible to the Blue and Gold Opportunity plan by law and if so can you please explain how this program is going to help me, because if not I have no way of paying for college. And please don't refer me to the blue and gold opportunity plan link because I have already read that over.</p>
<p>That is worth more than $1,551 per year. It covers the same amount Cal Grant A does ($10,302 for 2010-2011 at UCs) for tuition/fee assistance and also gives $1,551 for living assistance. The only catch is that Cal Grant B does not give tuition/fee assistance the freshman year.</p>
<p>Blue&Gold only guarantees that systemwide fees will be met through a combination of grants and scholarships (it is not a grant aid program itself except to make up any shortcomings with UC Fee Grant assistance). However, this works out very well for Cal Grant B recipients: you have a guarantee that the tuition/fee assistance that is missing from Cal Grant B for the freshman year will be met. CSUs and privates are also known to meet this amount the freshman year as well, but there is no program like Blue&Gold.</p>
<p>Note that you will not receive any other aid from Blue&Gold beyond ensuring that your systemwide fees are met. Additional campus fees, housing, food, books, transportation, and personal expenses may or may not be covered partially by other grant aid (Pell Grant, individual UC grant, scholarship, etc). You will likely have at least stafford loans included in your package.</p>
<p>To clarify, Blue&Gold is not a law. It is a program offered by the UC system. It is not operated by the state of California like Cal Grant is.</p>
<p>Hi, thanks for giving me this reply, I believe I understand what you mean. However, if you don’t mind, just to clarify I’m going to ask you some questions again and see if you can answer them =]</p>
<ol>
<li><p>According to that website, the tuition fee is $11,984. Does that mean if I only got $1500 for Cal Grant B, I will be guaranteed to qualify for Blue and Gold which means that it will pay for the extra $10,484 that I am missing on my freshman year?</p></li>
<li><p>After the tuition fee is over with, I can use grants such as Pell Grant to aid me on other supplies right?</p></li>
<li><p>And since Cal Grant B gave me only $1500 my first year, is Cal grant newly calculated the next years and if so, how are they calculated.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I’ll try to break it down a little more. Hopefully this will make sense :). Note that all numbers I will be including are for UCs and I am using current year numbers.</p>
<p>Systemwide Fees: These are the fees that are charged universally by all campuses. This is all that matters for Cal Grant and Blue&Gold.</p>
<p>Tuition/Fee Assistance: This is the amount that helps with systemwide fees.</p>
<p>Living Assistance: This is an amount that is given directly to the student each quarter to help with various living costs. It is not considered to be a part of the tuition/fee assistance.</p>
<p>Cal Grant A provides:
Tuition/fee assistance ($10,302)</p>
<p>Cal Grant B provides:
Tuition/fee assistance ($10,302)*
Living assistance ($1,551)</p>
<p>*NOTE: Tuition/fee assistance is only available directly from CSAC for sophomore, junior, and senior year.</p>
<p>However, the tuition/fee assistance is made up the freshman year by the campus in one way or another through grant (and/or scholarship) money. Blue&Gold guarantees/promises that it will be.</p>
<p>So a rough aid package (just for systemwide fees and additional Cal Grant monies) might look something like this:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Using the number you gave as an example, the $11,984 is the tuition/fee amount. Just mentally replace wherever it says “$10,302” with “$11,984.” You would be getting $11,984 in tuition/fee assistance on top of the $1,551 amount if you qualify for Blue&Gold (which I’m assuming you do since you qualify for Cal Grant B ;)).</p>
<p>But, like I said in my previous post, the only guarantee is for systemwide fees to have only grant and scholarship aid. The UCs are often fairly generous with low income students, but they do not promise to meet full need (especially not full need without loans). Blue&Gold allows for the use of any grant or scholarship aid to meet its promise.</p>
<p>EDIT: Almost forgot to answer the other two questions more clearly…</p>
<p>2) As I said, Pell could be used to meet the Blue&Gold promise. You might not have additional grant aid over tuition/fee assistance. You won’t know until your package comes in.</p>
<p>Any refund you will receive will be only if there is an amount to refund. If your bill matches or exceeds your financial aid, you will not receive a refund (and you might owe money if your bill exceeds financial aid). Pay particular attention to this since the Living Assistance amount from Cal Grant B is not applied to any of your bill. It is sent directly to the student. I pay out of pocket every quarter because of this.</p>
<p>3) Cal Grants are adjusted as needed at the beginning of each year to take care of systemwide fees. If they are not, that is where Blue&Gold comes in handy again.</p>
<p>Wow thank you so much! All that information has helped me a lot towards understanding how the blue and gold opportunity plan works. However, I’m very sorry, but to just make things clear, I wish I can ask one more simple question!</p>
<p>According to how they say that the blue and gold plan will guarantee my tuition/fee amount through grants, scholarships, uc grants, etc if my cal grant and pell grant is not enough, do they mean that I “myself” have to search everywhere for those grants and scholarships to have them counted towards my tuition/fee, or does the UC do that for me automatically?</p>
<p>They’ll take care of it :). It is a promise after all!</p>
<p>Before my Cal Grant was applied to my financial aid offer, I had an additional amount known as “UC Fee Grant.” Also, when there was a mid-year increase in systemwide fees, I again had a “UC Fee Grant” (but significantly smaller this time).</p>
<p>Cal Grant after the freshman year will be enough on its own to cover the systemwide fees… assuming we don’t have another mid-year systemwide fee increase, of course. But you’ll be covered with Blue&Gold if that happens.</p>
<p>Now just cross your fingers we don’t lose such generosity because our governor has decided the best place to cut is our education system to solve our budget issues.</p>