<p>Over 252,000 California students like you are currently receiving funds from Cal Grants. At UCLA, approximately 7,000 students receive Cal Grant Funding annually totally $46 million dollars. Last week, Governor Schwarzenegger submitted a new proposed budget that would make a number of spending cuts, including a phased elimination of the Cal Grant program. Students who are currently receiving Cal Grants would continue to have their awards renewed as long as they are eligible. However, all new awards for the 2009-10 year, approximately 116,200 new awards, would be cancelled. Over the next few years, all Cal Grants would be eliminated.</p>
<p>The Joint Legislative Budget Committee will be holding hearings on cuts to education this week and deliberating this serious matter, and it is important they hear your voice on this very critical issue which affects college access and your continued enrollment. YOUR HELP IS NEEDED IMMEDIATELY! Please contact the members of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee by email or by fax using the contact information provided below. Additionally, we strongly encourage you to send this similar communication to your specific Senate and Assembly state representatives in your home district. Let them know how these cuts will affect you, your younger siblings, and other California students like you who need Cal Grant assistance to help finance a college education.</p>
<p>To receive updates on this important issue and additional information regarding opportunities for you to become involved in Bruin Advocacy, go to UCLA</a> Government and Community Relations. YOUR VOICE IS IMPORTANT. Below you will find four
attachments regarding specific ways you can help. Thank you for your important contribution in opposing these
proposed cuts.</p>
<p>Write a letter. That’s what I’ll be doing. It kinda sucks that they’re pulling funding from people who will be responsible tax-paying citizens in a few years, but continue to fund welfare for people who will leech from the government for their entire lives. Another moronic decision from the governator.</p>
<p>If enough people show opposition to this, the politicians will back down.</p>
<p>They should just legalize marijauna and sell packs for $20. They could tax the ***** out of it and people would still buy it. California would have such a surplus we could buy Nevada, Arizona and Oregon just for the hell of it.</p>
<p>This is off the Save Cal Grants group on Facebook. It has a few ideas about what you can do:</p>
<p>"1) Write to your elected officials.</p>
<p>Below are suggested talking points:</p>
<ul>
<li>Eliminating Cal Grants won’t solve California’s budget crisis.</li>
<li>Taking away Cal Grants in the middle of a deep recession will force those students out of school and into a workforce where there aren’t enough jobs to go around anyway.</li>
<li>Share your story. Many of us in CYD received Cal Grants or know someone who has. Tell these legislators how Cal Grants have affected you or someone you know by emailing them your personal story. Consider attaching a digital photo or video clip to make sure they know that you are not just another name in the crowd.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Please copy <a href="mailto:IMagruder@youngdems.org">IMagruder@youngdems.org</a> on the email you send so that we can help share it with the media.</strong></p>
<p>Sample email:</p>
<p>Dear XXXXX,</p>
<p>I am writing to ask Assemblymember/Senator _______ to pledge to oppose the Governor’s proposal to eliminate Cal Grants.</p>
<p>Eliminating Cal Grants is a mean-spirited and drastic proposal that won’t solve California’s budget crisis. In fact, it will only make the situation worse. Hundreds of thousands of California’s students rely on Cal Grants to finance their education. Taking away that support in the middle of a deep recession will force those students out of school and into a workforce where there aren’t enough jobs to go around.</p>
<p>Beyond the fact that it would make a bad situation even worse, eliminating the Cal Grant Program would ultimately put California in even worse shape. (Your story here) [Students wishing to become teachers will instead end up working at a supermarket. People who would have cured cancer in a UC research lab will instead be curing hunger as a waiter at the local restaurant.] For decades, Cal Grants have provided opportunities to millions of Californians who would otherwise be unable to pursue higher education. And if we were to eliminate that pathway, California’s long-term ability to grow will be virtually wiped out.</p>
<p>Please fight the Governor and his plan to balance the budget on the backs of California’s students.</p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>xxxxxxx</p>
<p>Email all of the following targets:</p>
<ul>
<li>Harry Ermoian, Chief of Staff to Assemblymember Noreen Evans
o <a href="mailto:harry.ermoian@asm.ca.gov">harry.ermoian@asm.ca.gov</a></li>
<li>Dan Reeves, Chief of Staff to Assemblymember Kevin de Le</li>
</ul>
<p>I’m doing it and will be pushing everyone around me too, godDANGit. This is BULL. If they do this, I’m leaving the state after graduation and taking my eventual high income somewhere else, thank you very much… =p</p>
<p>I just checked my email and I just got the letter. It looks like we’re getting ****ed. Suwaifo, “spared the axe” that’s very funny. I thought I was spared too, but it seems to me that everyone should be getting an email from UCLA FINAID office.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter whether or not you received the letter. No one is going to be spared. Unless they change their minds, Cal grants are going to be axed for everyone.
Cleverly (they are politicians), they are allowing people who have been receiving Cal Grants to continue to receive them until they graduate. This means that most current university students probably will not freak out about this because it won’t affect them. This will drastically cut down on the number of people who will actively protest, since generally people only protest when something affects them directly.
I never applied for a Cal Grant because, going to a community college, I could always afford to pay for classes/books/everything on my own, straight up. Now I wish I had just applied for it like everyone else and just used the money to buy a Xbox or a Wii. I know a lot of people who abused the system that way, and in the end, it will probably pay off for them.
HOPEFULLY everyone rallies around this and convinces the legislature to tell the governator to F off.</p>
<p>Don’t stress out too much guys, from what I read most of us are fine. </p>
<p>“Students who are currently receiving Cal Grants would continue to have their awards renewed as long as they are eligible. However, all new awards for the 2009-10 year, approximately 116,200 new awards, would be cancelled. Over the next few years, all Cal Grants would be eliminated.”</p>
<p>It states that those who have received in the past (many of us fall under that) will continue to receive help, which means we didn’t get ****ed over like those who applied for the first time for the 2009-10 school year. Since we are continuing we should be fine-- I hope.</p>
<p>Even if this doesn’t affect me this is BS. Why are students treated like second rate citizens?</p>
<p>wait wait wait MANY people needing the money are needing it now. what crap is that? That number is what… HALF the amount that gets awarded cal grants? so… over 100,000 are forced to loan out 5-9 thousand extra? A YEAR? so… eventually, few students can afford university and they wont be able to operate as businesses anymore and begin mass layoffs? so these same students stay struggling in lower income tax brackets and barely contribute to their society? their STATE? </p>
<p>no no no. this is NOT going to happen. i didn’t work my ass off and pay my taxes so i can get screwed because of our corrupt legislature. i’m thinking of ways to reach out to people and get them to support us in fighting this. setting up camp in front of a sbux or trader joes? signing petitions? whatever. let me know if you’re down to actively go against this; i’ll be spending tomorrow buying stamps and sending letters.</p>
<p>To elaborate, I was talking to my grandfather, and he told me he always votes against any social program that spends money on education. I couldn’t believe it. He went on to say that his kids are out of school. I was dumbfounded.</p>
<p>Sorry, but complaining and writing letters is not going to reverse the business flight from California or improve state tax revenue. You are just spinning your wheels.</p>
<p>The state doesn’t have the money to send you to college - guess what – other states don’t have these kinds of grants. These grants were another area where California was spending way beyond the norm and more then it could afford. In all the other states, without grant programs, life goes on; students still go to college; the world has not come to an end; get over it. </p>
<p>Stop whining and put your energy into how you are going to pay for your education.</p>
<p>^ other states have other grants and more. IE: 49 states provide some sort of fund from their budget for it’s National Guardsmen. California is currently the only state in the US that does not provide any education benefits for them. (The N.G. is a state-led entity… not on the federal level.)</p>
<p>just saying California is not all high & mighty, or overly generous.</p>
<p>/sarcasm on
Oh, well if other states don’t do it, then… And there were no Cal Grants 50 years ago, right? So why should they have them now. Hell, 200 years ago education was completely private, and my gap toothed greatgreatgreatgreat uncle turned out ok! He didn’t even go to school! And he didn’t whine! If it worked then, it’ll work now! Hell, 1000 years ago only supersuper rich people went to school, and that was back in the time of King Arthur, Merlin, Bilbo Baggins and Romeo and Juliet! S**t was off the hook! Lets do it like THEY did it!
Why does the state bother to put out a dime to educate the populous? It’s not like having an educated society is a good thing! Maybe at one point California knew that Cal Grants would encourage people to go to school that normally wouldn’t because of the high cost. Maybe they knew that assisting students who wanted to get an education would in-turn generate revenue for the state after these students graduated and gained employment. Maybe California’s strong support for higher education is the reason the UC system has become so prestigious, and has discovered many wonderful things through research. Berkeley discovered an element, Berkelium, and UCLA and UCSB helped to create ARPANET, the predecessor to the internet (but who needs elements and the stupid internet? It’s all just porn anyway).
But the Governator disagrees, and he knows best (because he’s done such a brilliant job so far).
Of all the programs to cut, they should cut the one that will generate tax dollars in the future! Because, none of the other states have similar programs. Whiney Californians.</p>