I’m aware that California passed something that stopped out of state student need based aid, but what about merit aid? Do they still give out scholarships for test scores or gpa to OOS students?
There is a VERY small number or merit grants available for the tip topmost OOS applicants.
This is from the UCLA website regarding their Regents scholarship, just to give you an idea of the merit aid available at some of the UC’s.
The top 1.5% of freshman applicants to UCLA, along with approxmately 600 third year transfer students are invited to apply for the Regents Scholarship. Of these students, 100 students receive the offer of scholarship.
The application itself is separate from the UC application, and consists of two short personal essays and a letter of recommendation. The application review and selection process is conducted by the faculty advisors to the Regents Scholar Society.
The Scholarship itself consists of:
A $2000 honorarium.
From UCB:
Monetary Award and Scholarship Tenure: The Regents’ and Chancellor’s Scholarship includes a monetary award that is determined each year. Students without financial need receive a $10,000 honorary award over four years. The scholarship is renewable annually, up to a maximum of eight semesters for incoming freshmen and a maximum of four semesters for incoming transfers.
These amounts hardly offset the OOS costs for $55K+/year.