BILL ANALYSIS Ó
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
SB 760 (Alquist)
Hearing Date: 05/23/2011 Amended: 05/09/2011
Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-HernandezPolicy Vote: Education 9-0
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BILL SUMMARY: SB 760 would define and further specify reporting
requirements enacted in SB 70 (Chapter 7, Statutes of 2011) for
institutions that participate in the voluntary Cal Grant
program.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2011-12 2012-13
2013-14 Fund
Delay reporting requirements
---- Cost pressure*---- General
Increased reporting Potentially significant
ongoing cost pressure; General
Potentially significant savings
*Ongoing cost pressure created by SB 70 is delayed to 2012-13.
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STAFF COMMENTS: This bill may meet the criteria for referral to
the Suspense File.
The Cal Grant Program is administered by the California Student
Aid Commission (CSAC), to provide grants to financially needy
students in order for them to attend college. These grants are
awarded to assist with the costs of a program of study that
result in the award of an associate or baccalaureate degree or
certificate requiring at least 24 semester units or the
equivalent, or results in eligibility to transfer from a
community college to a baccalaureate degree program. (EC § 69430
et. seq.)
Recently enacted law, under SB 70 (Chapter 7, Statutes of 2011),
SB 760 (Alquist)
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requires as a condition of voluntary participation in the Cal
Grant program, each Cal Grant participating institution to
provide the CSAC with enrollment, persistence, and graduation
data for all students and job placement rate and salary data and
wage information for each program that is either: 1) designed or
advertised to lead to a particular type of job; or 2) advertised
or promoted with any claim regarding job placement. (Education
Code § 69433.2)
The Cal Grant reporting requirements enacted in SB 70 will be
very costly for institutions that participate in the Cal Grant
program. In order to collect data required for the report,
institutions may require increased staff time, upgraded
technology and programming, and new processes for data
collection and reporting. Implementing the reporting
requirements of SB 70 in California Community Colleges (CCCs)
alone will likely incur tens of millions of dollars in upfront
costs to upgrade processes and infrastructure, as well as
millions of dollars in annual ongoing costs. While SB 70 is not
a mandate, because participation in the Cal Grant program is
voluntary, it is unlikely that CCCs, California State
University, and the University of California would stop
participating in a program that provides substantial support the
students attending those institutions. SB 70 created substantial
cost pressure to incur reporting costs to comply with Cal Grant
regulations.
This bill is intended to be a clean-up bill to implement SB 70.
However, in attempting to define the terms used in SB 70 and
elaborating on its reporting requirements, this bill creates
more extensive reporting requirement in certain respects. In
other respects, this bill may reduce reporting requirements.
For example, SB 70 (existing law) requires that Cal Grant
participating institutions report to CSAC "Enrollment,
persistence, and graduation data for all students, including
aggregate information on Cal Grant recipients." This bill
expands a single, vague sentence in existing law to require: (a)
Enrollment data, including enrollment status and whether the
student is a first-time student, continuing or returning
student, transfer student, or other student; (b) Persistence
data, including a student's educational level; (c) Graduation
data, including whether a degree or certificate was conferred
and the on-time completion rate by cohort based on date of
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initial enrollment and by degree and certificate, for each
California campus identified under the same six-digit federal
Office of Postsecondary Education identification number, and in
the aggregate for all the institution's campuses and locations.
This bill's requirements potentially exceed the requirements of
SB 70, because it is unclear what "enrollment, persistence, and
graduation data" would have encompassed absent further
explanation, and participating institutions could have provided
less data than what this bill requires. However, absent
statutory clarification, interpreting the requirements of SB 70
would be left up to the CSAC as the program administrator. The
CSAC has indicated that it views these provisions as clarifying;
thus, in the absence of this bill, the CSAC may interpret and
enforce vague reporting requirements in the same manner as this
bill does.
SB 70 also required that participating institutions report the
job placement rate and salary and wage information for "each
program that is either (1) designed or advertised to lead to a
particular type of job; or (2) advertised or promoted with any
claim regarding job placement." This bill requires that same
type of information, but in both aggregate and disaggregate
forms across campuses and programs. While this bill does require
more extensive reporting, the primary costs will be driven by
collecting information that institutions may not currently
collect on students who have completed their studies. For
example, the CCCs do not systematically collect information in
future years on students who have completed career technical
training at their institutions. There will likely be additional
costs to reporting the information in a more extensive way, but
the most substantial costs will come from the SB 70 requirements
to collect that information. The state primarily funds the CCCs,
and cost pressure to comply with these requirements to allow CCC
students the opportunity for financial aid is direct cost
pressure on the state General Fund (Prop 98).
This bill further specifies that the CSAC may use data already
available from federal agencies and other state agencies in lieu
of requiring institutions to report, if the CSAC determines that
the data is sufficient. That allowance is not permitted under SB
70. To the extent that data from federal agencies can be used in
lieu of requiring institutional reporting, there will be reduced
costs for participating institutions. This bill also delays to
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July 1, 2013 all reporting requirements that would otherwise go
into effect July 1, 2012. In the absence of this bill, the SB 70
reporting requirements and expense to comply will be realized a
year earlier and concentrated in a single fiscal year.
To the extent that this bill does, in fact, increase reporting
requirements above those enacted in SB 70, it could reduce Cal
Grant participation by both public and private institutions.
This would result in state savings from reducing grant amounts
paid, but could result in a variety of unintended consequences
for financially needy students and the educational institutions
that serve them.