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Cal Grant Program Off To a Slow Start
California's ambitious goal to provide scholarships to every high-school graduate in the state with financial need and a minimum grade point average fell far short of expectations last year. A 2000 state law mandated that students who met the academic and financial requirements of the state's existing Cal Grants program be guaranteed aid if they applied within a year of graduating from high school. Before passage of the law, the state had turned away tens of thousands of eligible applicants because the program ran out of money.
But even with the dramatically increased financial support the new law provided, the Cal Grants program did not fund many more students in 2001-02 than it had in the previous year. In 2000-01, the California Student Aid Commission awarded grants to about 77,000 students, according to commission spokesperson Carole Solov. For 2001-02, the commission awarded about 79,000 grants.
The different types of Cal Grants include the Cal Grant A, open to recent high school graduates from low- and middle-income families who have at least a 3.0 grade point average, and the Cal Grant B, open to recent high school graduates from low-income families who have at least a 2.0 grade point average. In addition to these two "entitlement" grants, which are now guaranteed to applicants meeting the criteria, additional grants are available on a competitive basis to other California students, including older students. In contrast to the entitlement grants, which received fewer applications than was hoped, the competitive grant programs received as many as five times more applications than could be funded.
The results disappointed the program's supporters, who had applauded its combined emphasis on merit and need. Some lawmakers, students, and college officials pointed to limited publicity and a confusing application process as part of the problem. Not all students and institutions were aware of how the entitlement program works, and some applied for the wrong kind of grant or failed to send required supporting materials. Other applications were invalidated because of mistakes made on the forms. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that several colleges also failed to send students' grade point averages to the commission, thereby invalidating the students' applications. According to the newspaper, almost fifteen hundred students at one college were thus disqualified.
Last year, the student aid commission had only a few months to get the word out about the new law before applications were due, Solov says, and she characterizes the results as good for the first year. Publicity has been increased this year, and the commission hopes it will eventually receive grant applications from every high school senior in the state.
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