BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 970
Page 1
Date of Hearing: March 29, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
Marty Block, Chair
AB 970 (Fong) - As Introduced: February 18, 2011
SUBJECT : Cal Grant B awards: award amount.
SUMMARY : Provides a four year phase-in of first-year tuition
and fee benefits for Cal Grant B students. Specifically, this
bill :
1)Increases from 2% to 25% the number of first-year Cal Grant B
recipients who are eligible for payments for tuition or fees
or both in the 2012-13 academic year.
2)Increases the above percentage to:
a) 50% in 2013-14;
b) 75% in 2014-15; and,
c) 100% in 2015-16.
EXISTING LAW provides for Cal Grant assistance for needy
students to be administered by the California Student Aid
Commission and provides that 2% of first-time Cal Grant B
recipients are eligible for payments for tuition or student
fees.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown, but the Assembly Appropriations
Committee analysis of an identical bill last year identified
General Fund costs of about $50 million in 2011-12, when an
additional 7,700 Cal Grant B recipients would receive tuition
benefits, increasing to $133 million in 2014-15, when an
additional 21,300 recipients would receive tuition benefits.
These estimates are based on the estimated number of awards to
be paid in 2010-11 and do not account for any tuition or fee
increases after 2010-11.
COMMENTS : Proposed budget cuts to Cal Grant program . As part
of the 2011-12 Budget Act, the Legislature recently approved
$124 million in cuts to the Cal Grant program by requiring the
California Student Aid Commission to annually verify income and
asset levels of renewals and by making institutions with
AB 970
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specified student default rates ineligible to participate in Cal
Grant programs.
Cal Grant background . Among the various Cal Grant programs,
there are two major grants-Cal Grant A and Cal Grant B. Each
has an "entitlement" component that guarantees a grant to all
needy, eligible students, although awards are generally
restricted to students just leaving high school or in their
first year of college. The Entitlement Cal Grant A is for
students with family incomes ranging up to $90,300 (family of
six) with at least a 3.0 high school grade point average (GPA).
The Entitlement Cal Grant B is for disadvantaged students from
much lower income families (ranging up to $49,600 for a family
of six), but students only need a 2.0 GPA to qualify. Both Cal
Grant A and B also have a "competitive" component that offers
only a limited number of awards that are generally available for
older students.
First-year restrictions on Cal Grant B awards . Cal Grant A
students receive tuition and fee benefits for four years. Cal
Grant B students receive tuition and fee benefits as well as an
access grant to help with books, supplies and other costs, but
98% of the Cal Grant B students are not awarded tuition and fee
assistance in their first year of college. Cal Grant B's
prohibition against tuition and fee support in the first year of
college goes back several decades. The State began the "State
Scholarship Program" in 1955, which later became Cal Grant A.
By the mid-1960s, it was clear that students from the lowest
income families needed more than just tuition and fees, or
access would not be achieved. The "College Opportunity Grant"
(COG) was enacted to add a stipend for books, supplies,
dormitories, etc., to the tuition and fee support. COG, which
later became Cal Grant B, did not provide tuition and fee
support in the first year because it was assumed that really
low-income students would go to a California Community College
(CCC) and should be encouraged to do so. Only the best and the
brightest would go straight to four-year schools, which is why
only the "top 2%" of current Cal Grant B students receive
tuition and fee support. The notion that low-income students
could not or should not enroll directly in a four-year college
or university is no longer widely shared by policymakers, but
the program structure has not changed.
Growing inequities . This situation has resulted in some cases
in which lower income students receive a smaller lifetime Cal
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Grant than higher income students. This occurs because the
first-year tuition benefit-currently $9,708 at a private
university and $11,124 at the University of California (UC)-is
more than four years of the access grant (currently $1,551). In
2007-08, for the first-time students attending UC faced the same
situation. As a result, UC began shifting its students from Cal
Grant B to Cal Grant A awards, when possible, to provide
students with the highest four-year award.
Impact on CCC students . CCC students are not affected by this
program structure as CCC fees are waived for all needy students
through the Board of Governors Fee Waiver program. Cal Grant B
awards for CCC students provide the access grant only.
Previous legislation . AB 1761 (Fong, 2010), AB 2365 (De La
Torre, 2008), and AB 302 (De La Torre, 2007), which were held in
the Assembly Appropriations Committee, were identical or
substantially similar to this bill. AB 175 (Price, 2007), which
was also held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, provided
for a gradual, indexed increase in the Cal Grant B access grant.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Community College League of California
Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Sandra Fried / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960