BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
SB 62 (Pavley) - Student financial aid: Assumption Program of
Loans for Education: Governor's Teaching Fellowships Program
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|Version: April 7, 2015 |Policy Vote: ED. 8 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: May 11, 2015 |Consultant: Jillian Kissee |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: This bill would make various programmatic changes to
the existing Assumption Program of Loans for Education (APLE)
and Governor's Teaching Fellowships Program.
Fiscal
Impact:
Cost Pressures: In the tens of millions General Fund. (see
staff comments)
Administrative costs: CSU reports minimal costs for the APLE
awards, and one-time costs of $20,000 plus ongoing workload
necessitating 2 positions and about $158,000 to administer the
Governor's Teaching Fellowships. The California Student Aid
Commission has indicated increased workload to cost in the
high hundreds of thousands.
Background: The APLE program, administered by the California Student Aid
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Commission, was established in 1983 to provide loan assumption
benefits to credentialed teachers. Generally, APLE warrants are
given to credential candidates; the warrants are then redeemed
for the loan assumption benefit once the candidate has earned a
credential and completed a year of eligible teaching. The
program is designed to increase the number of qualified teachers
in disadvantaged schools or high-priority subject areas. The
program "forgives" up to $11,000 of college loan debt for a
person who teaches for four consecutive years in a qualifying
school or subject area (paying $2,000 for the first year of
teaching service and $3,000 for each of the next three years of
teaching).
Qualifying schools include those with high proportions of
low-income youth or emergency permit teachers and those located
in rural areas. The subject area shortages are annually
determined by the Superintendent of Public Instruction and may
vary from year to year; math, science and special education have
been listed consistently for many years. (Education Code §
69612)
Additional loan forgiveness of $1,000 per year for up to four
years is provided for those who teach math, science or special
education (for a total of $15,000) and an additional $1,000 is
provided for those who teach math, science or special education
in schools with an academic performance index (API) of 1 or 2
(for a total of $19,000).
(EC § 69613.8)
The Student Aid Commission is prohibited from awarding a greater
number of agreements than is authorized in the annual Budget
Act. (EC § 69615.8)
The Governor's Teaching Fellowships Program, administered by the
Chancellor's office of the California State University, provided
grants for highly-qualified aspiring teachers who taught for
four years at a low-performing school. Fellowship awards were
available to be used to defer tuition for a teacher
certification program at any accredited postsecondary
institution in California and for living expenses while
enrolled.
(EC § 7000 et. seq.)
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Proposed Law:
This bill would make various programmatic changes to the
existing Assumption Program of Loans for Education (APLE).
Specifically, this bill, among other things:
1. Amends the definition of "eligible school" to one that
serves a percentage of an unduplicated count of students
classified as an English learner, eligible for a free or
reduced-price meal, or is a foster youth (unduplicated
pupils) determined by the Superintendent of Public
Instruction, rather than serving a large population of
pupils from low-income families.
2. Eliminates the requirement that an eligible school is
ranked in the lowest two deciles on the Academic
Performance Index (API). Staff notes that the section of
law pertaining to the production of API ranks has been
repealed in recent years. Therefore, references to API
deciles are obsolete.
3. Removes the requirement that an applicant has received or
is approved to receive a loan under the Federal Family
Education Loan Program and replaces it with the requirement
that an applicant has demonstrated financial need.
4. Removes the provision allowing up to 400 APLE loan
assumption agreements to go to credentialed teachers, as
specified, each year.
5. Modifies the list of schools (that serve a large population
of pupils from low-income families) that the SPI is
required to provide to the Student Aid Commission each
year, by replacing schools with high student eligibility
for the Perkins Loan Program with schools eligible for
supplemental funding which is generated by unduplicated
pupils under the state's school funding formula, as
specified.
6. Removes the prohibition for teachers in self-contained
classrooms and multi-subject credential holders from
participating in APLE.
7. Amends the provision allowing additional loan forgiveness
of $1,000 per year for those who teach math, science or
special education by eliminating the requirement that they
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work in a school is in the lowest 60 percentile of the API.
8. Prohibits participants in APLE from concurrently
participating in the Governor's Teaching Fellowships
Program, and vice versa.
This bill would also make various programmatic changes to the
existing Governor's Teaching Fellowships Program. Specifically,
this bill:
1. Requires the CSU to collaborate with the Student Aid
Commission to ensure that access to the fellowships is
available to students in a variety of teaching preparation
programs.
2. Amends the definition of "high-priority school" to one that
serves a percentage of unduplicated pupils determined by
the Superintendent of Public Instruction, rather than being
in the bottom half of the API and makes conforming changes
for a school that loses its qualification.
3. Provides that the CSU shall award no more than the number
of fellowships that are authorized by the Governor and
Legislature in the annual Budget Act for that year.
Related
Legislation: SB 1264 (Pavley, 2014) proposed to establish the
Educator Excellence Program, an assumption loan program for up
to 6,500 teachers who satisfied specified criteria.
SB 212 (Pavley, 2013) would have appropriated $5 million, from
an unspecified fund source, for 7,200 new warrants for the
assumption of school loans for teachers in identified areas of a
shortage of teachers. This bill failed passage in this
committee.
Staff
Comments: Current law requires that not more than $5 million be
expended in a given year on loan assumption benefits. This bill
amends the current program requirements, thereby creating a cost
pressure to fund the program.
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This bill requires that the CSU not award more than the number
of fellowships that are authorized in the annual Budget Act for
that year for Governor's Teaching Fellowships. This provision
creates a cost pressure to fund the program. The Budget Act of
2001 provided CSU $21 million General Fund to provide 1,000
Governor's Teaching Fellowships, including $1,000,000 to
administer the program.
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