FERMIN LEAL/EDSOURCE TODAY

Parent Raul Zuniga and his girl Sandy, a senior at La Habra Loftier in Orange County, receive help with financial aid forms from counselor Rosa Sanchez at a "Cash for College" workshop.

FERMIN LEAL/EDSOURCE TODAY

Parent Raul Zuniga and his girl Sandy, a senior at La Habra Loftier in Orange Canton, receive aid with financial aid forms from counselor Rosa Sanchez at a "Greenbacks for College" workshop.

The state could help more than than xx,000 boosted students pay for college nether Gov. Jerry Brown's state budget proposal.

The governor wants the land to invest $2.1 billion in 2016-17 in the Cal Grant Plan, the nation's largest state-funded college aid plan. That'south $137 million more than concluding year, which will help up to seven percent more incoming freshmen, transfer, and continuing higher students.

"The majority of students in California are low-income," said Lupita Cortez Alcalá, executive director of the California Educatee Aid Commission. "Cal Grants and other assistance gives students the opportunity to continue to college and prosper."

Since 2012-13, country funding for the Cal Grant plan has grown by more than $568 1000000, an increase of 37 percent. The additional investment has allowed the number of Cal Grant recipients to grow to 450,498 in 2015, up from 329,300 in 2011.

Despite the increase in the number of Cal Grants awarded, state officials say many eligible students don't apply. A statewide campaign is underway to boost those numbers by the March two awarding borderline.

The proposed increase in state funding for the Cal Grant programme is on par with increases approved by lawmakers over the past four years every bit the state'southward economy continues to recover from the recession and record numbers of students utilize to the state's public universities.

For this fall, more than 311,000 students applied for admission to the California State Academy arrangement. The University of California organisation received applications for fall admission from more than 206,300 students. Both figures were record highs. Typically, students seeking access to UC or CSU apply to ii or more campuses, which drives the full number of applications for both systems much higher than the number of applicants. Students in families of four who earn $ninety,500 or less qualify for Cal Grants. The grants of $1,656 to $12,240 a yr are guaranteed to students who meet income, GPA and residency requirements.

Starting in 2013, Cal Grants became available for undocumented students who authorize nether the California Dream Act, which allows undocumented students who graduated from a California high school to receive state financial aid. About 7,600 undocumented students received Cal Grants concluding year.

Students utilize through the Free Application for Federal Educatee Help website, where they tin can likewise employ for other state and federal aid and loans, including Pell Grants.

Even so, many students miss out on the gratuitous cash for college but because they don't utilise.

Near 40 percent of high school seniors, or almost 158,000 students, didn't employ for Cal Grants in 2022 fifty-fifty though many of them would have qualified, according to an annual survey by Education Trust-W.

Tens of thousands probably meet the bookish and fiscal eligibility criteria, according to a 2022 Ed Trust-West report. These students exit potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in Cal Grant aid untapped. Many of these students believe they tin't afford to pay for college and then they end up non going, co-ordinate to Ed Trust-West. (Ed Trust-West and country officials said it'south hard to make up one's mind the bodily number of students who would qualify for the aid if they applied considering it would involve measuring family unit sizes, income levels, GPA requirements and other data of all students who don't employ.)

Officials from the California Educatee Assist Committee are at present working with high schools and colleges on a entrada aimed at encouraging more students to employ for Cal Grants and other aid.

Ads now regularly plough upward on billboards and English language- and Castilian-language radio programs. This winter, high schools, colleges and customs centers are hosting more than 900 "Cash for College" workshops, where counselors, teachers and volunteers help students and parents fill out forms.

At a recent workshop in Orange County, La Habra High school senior Sandy Zuniga typed away at a computer terminal, working on her Cal Grant awarding, for more than an hr every bit her father, Raul Zuniga, advisedly sifted through a bundle of financial documents.

Hovering over their shoulder, counselor Rosa Sanchez patiently answered questions about the information the Zunigas had to provide for the application, such equally GPA verification forms, income requirements and college search codes.

"A lot of this is actually complicated and hard to understand," said Sandy Zuniga, who's hoping to nourish Cal State Fullerton this fall. "Information technology helps out that in that location's a place to get to help u.s.a. through this process."

The workshop was organized by Advance! On to College, a La Habra nonprofit created to help low-income students and those from minority groups traditionally underrepresented in California colleges navigate the college application procedure. Vanessa Juarez, a advisor at the nonprofit, said it'south like shooting fish in a barrel for parents and students to become overwhelmed.

"Nosotros become a lot of undecided students who know college exists, merely they don't know how to get there," Juarez said. "Parents' biggest business concern is wondering how they'll pay for everything."

Across the state, many high schools and colleges open up computer labs, libraries, even gymnasiums, to host workshops each January and February.

At Century High in Santa Ana, 800 to one,000 students cram into the schoolhouse's computer labs for the school'due south annual workshop. Some parents and students look hours for their turn at a computer terminal.

At Long Beach Unified, all students must pledge to fill out the FAFSA and Cal Grant applications as part of its Long Beach College Promise, which guarantees qualified students admission to Cal Land Long Beach and a semester of free tuition at Long Beach City Higher.

Francisco Torres, a junior at Cal State Long Beach and a graduate of Wilson High in Long Beach Unified, has received a Cal Grant each year he's attended higher.

Torres, a business major, said that without his Cal Grant, he and his single mother would have taken out plush loans to assist pay for tuition, supplies and other fees.

"I think I would e'er be worried almost coin, and wouldn't be able to focus on my school work," he said. "A Cal Grant is such a great incentive for students who want to succeed in college."

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