<p>I recently received an email from Berkeley informing me about the possibility of the entire Cal Grant program being removed due to the new California budget.</p>
<p>Does anybody have any information regarding how probable this is? </p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>I believe for this year, the only effect it might have on Cal Grants is a reduction in the total pool of available money to allocate to students. There is, however, new legislation that will phase out altogether Cal Grants which would go into effect the next school year, pending voting.</p>
<p>Basically, California needs money and is in a huge deficit, so they’re cutting funds in education, e.g. Cal Grants.</p>
<p>It’s going to happen, but that email was full of BS.</p>
<p>If you look at the wording, they disguised a rally-call email as something purely informational. I can assure you that it was sent in order to scare people and have them fight for cal grants back, not to tell people facts.</p>
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No it wouldn’t. As an out-of-stater, I don’t get cal grants, yet I’m getting scholarship help.</p>
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No, it wouldn’t. They can not be eliminated for fall '09. Notice how they left out which year the offers are going to be adjusted for.</p>
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Notice how they left out how long the phase out plan is going to be, and how students who don’t receive cal grants may have university grants cover their need - something that isn’t going to be cut.</p>
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BAM! There it is. The call to fight.</p>
<p>The financial aid office is interested in getting more money, not in helping out the students who need it.</p>
<p>Not like I’m horribly furious at the out-of-state fees or anything. haha</p>
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Haha, no. Doesn’t show at all. ;)</p>
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<p>Yes it would, because you wouldn’t be getting as much help from Cal. Cal’s mission is still to educate California students first and foremost, meaning their free aid would get redirected to fill the gap left by the CalGrant.</p>
<p>A lot of the rest of your post goes along those lines as well. If they simply cut out the Calgrants without any other adjustments then, yes, you’d be right. However, when they cut out the Calgrants, they WILL readjust the rest of the aid they offer accordingly. </p>
<p>The timing, I agree; I don’t believe they’re able to change the current awards. However, if Calgrant funding does get cut within the fiscal year, there would be funding differences to reconcile as the fiscal year and the school year differ.</p>
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<p>No, really, it wouldn’t.
I don’t get grant help - I have the alumni scholarship, which is totally separate from financial aid. As this is not allocated in their pool of resources, my lack of grant assistance and my small scholarship remains, and will remain, unaffected.</p>
<p>The Alumni scholarship is different. My apologies.</p>
<p>However, don’t forget that there is an extreme ripple affect with budget cuts. The lack of funds might not directly impact you, but it will certainly impact you. See the new email sent out by the Chancellor for an example of just how wide these effects are.</p>
<p>That’s all I meant to really point out – just because your aid package doesn’t look like it’ll change doesn’t mean things won’t change.</p>
<p>Undecided, you’re completely right. I know things will change, they’re bound to with such drastic cuts, but I felt like Cal was rubbing salt into my financial wounds with this email.</p>
<p>It would have been better of them to target this email to people who have any sort of aid besides private & federal.</p>