Elimination of Cal Grants????

Paying for College
1

<p>What up with this? I just received an email which I will post below:</p>

<hr>

<p>Dear Grant Recipient,</p>

<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 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>Sincerely,</p>

<p>Ronald W. Johnson
Director of Financial Aid
UCLA</p>

<hr>

<p>If the Cal Grants indeed become eliminated, then that really really sucks for many of us. I think they should have told us about this before we made our decision to come to UCLA. I'm out of state and I seriously need the money they gave me in order to attend.</p>

<p>This will probably affect a lot of you prospective students who are thinking about attending UCLA in the coming years, but at least you will know ahead of time so that you can choose a different university. </p>

<p>Any thoughts on this?</p>

2

<p>yea i heard this on the news… hopefully cal grant will not be canceled… i really need it to go to college… But it doesn’t look good right now…</p>

3

<p>That sucks… </p>

<p>The older generations talk about how spoiled today’s generation is… all I see is a bunch of hypocrites. </p>

<p>Who started the budget crisis? Who tacked on social security, with benefit after benefit with no end in sight? Who created a National debt worth trillions of dollars? Who started deficit spending on some Keynesian economic system? </p>

<p>Now they screw us over with their problems…</p>

4

<p>I agree this puts students in a terrible position, but I have a question about your post:

<br>
Out of state students are not eligible for the Cal Grant, so how were you awarded one?</p>

5

<p>I was just going to say the same thing. If you are out of State you are not eligible for calgrant.</p>

6

<p>I’m not sure though, but I did receive this email after all. It’s addressed to Cal Grant recipients. I did, however, received a first-year scholarship from UCLA worth about 11,000 dollars.</p>

7

<p>I think to be eligible for cal grant you just need to have been a resident when you graduated high school. So it is possible for someone who has moved out of state and is attending a school in state to be eligible. If you are under 28 you can be eligible when you transfer from a community college, and I don’t think it has to be a CCC. So someone who has been out of state for a while could still potentially get a cal grant. But, if that person is attending a state school they are also eligible for in-state tuition. If the poster is going to UCLA he should be getting in-state tuition if he graduated in CA.</p>

8

<p>Thanks for the reply but I’ve never set foot in California before. My situation is slightly different since I’m receiving a scholarship but the scholarship is pretty much just a grant in disguised. I need this scholarship more than ever because without it I’m paying full OOS tuition which is close to 50,000 dollars. I had many other options, but I decided to choose UCLA because its has been my dream school for a long long time. I got so many better offers from other schools and now I regret my decision greatly.</p>

9

<p>The Calgrant and your University scholarship are not the same thing at all. I don’t understand why you would have been sent the email. Maybe someone typed the wrong info in database and all scholarship recipients got the mailing. Calgrant is a grant awarded by the State and is for California residents only. Your scholarship is from the University. You are not a Calgrant recipient.</p>

10

<p>Alright thanks for clearing everything up for me. By the way I received what they call the Scholarship Recognition Award. The description is as follows: “The Scholarship Recognition Award is a one-year, non-renewable scholarship awarded to entering freshmen and transfer students who completed their FAFSA before the March 2 priority filing deadline. These are made to recognized stellar academic achievement, as evidence by admission to UCLA, to students who demonstrate significantly high financial need. Since these scholarship are offered for one year only, students who apply on time and continue to demonstrate financial need will be funded through University Grants for their future years of study.”</p>

11

<p>I would be concerned that if the State does eliminate the Calgrant then the school will have more students needing their funds for need based aid, which may make less available to each individual.</p>

12

<p>True since the UCLA is required to serve the people of California.</p>

13

<p>i think the statistic is about 80% (?) of UCLA students receive some type of financial aid–that being said, i receive about 8k a year from cal grant, and my little sister receives roughly the same amount from UCSD. no cal grant = no school, period. if they truly end the cal grant system, a massive amount of students, especially those from more disadvantaged backgrounds, will be going to community colleges instead. i know that without the financial aid, neither my sister nor i would be attending UCs.</p>