BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 2160
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Date of Hearing: May 14, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Mike Gatto, Chair
AB 2160 (Ting) - As Amended: May 5, 2014
Policy Committee: Higher
EducationVote:13-0
Education 7-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: Yes
SUMMARY
This bill:
1)Requires school districts and charter schools each year to
electronically submit, to the California Student Aid
Commission (CSAC), grade point averages (GPAs) for all seniors
and all graduates from the prior academic year.
2)Requires a district or charter school, prior to submitting the
GPA for a senior or graduate who has not applied for a Cal
Grant award, to obtain written permission of the parent or
guardian in compliance with the federal Family Educational
Rights and Privacy Act.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)School districts currently have the capability to
electronically transfer GPAs to CSAC.
2)With regard to districts obtaining written permission to
submit the GPAs from parents (or directly from
students/graduates over age 18):
a) For seniors, the permission form could be included along
with other information already provided to them at the
beginning of the school year. Any costs should be minor and
absorbable.
b) For graduates from the prior year, the districts likely
would have to mail the permission form to their last known
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address. It is assumed that districts would not transmit
the GPA of a graduate who did not return the permission
form. Assuming cost of $1 per graduate to prepare and mail
the form to all graduates, state reimbursable costs would
be around $500,000 annually. The bill could probably be
clarified to reduce this impact.
3)CSAC will incur one-time costs of around $100,000 related to
expanding the current Web Grants Portal to accommodate, all
school districts and ongoing costs of $50,000 to accommodate
an expected increase in calls for students, parents, and high
schools and following up and responding to appeals.
COMMENTS
Background and Purpose . To apply for a Cal Grant award, students
are required, by March 2, to: (1) complete and submit the Free
Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA); and, (2) file a
verified GPA with CSAC. Some high schools and colleges
automatically file their students' verified GPAs with CSAC and
others do not. Students are responsible for determining whether
the school will file the GPA automatically, or whether the
student will need to obtain a Cal Grant GPA Verification Form,
have it certified by the school official, and mail it to CSAC by
the deadline.
According to the sponsor, Education Trust-West (ETW), 42% of
Seniors from the class of 2013 did not complete a Cal Grant
application. ETW notes that one effective practice employed by
some districts is to submit GPAs electronically for all
students. ETW research indicates that districts that piloted
using electronic GPA verification and other data-driven
practices found a 15% increase in Cal Grant application
completion-71% compared to 56% for other school districts.
The author notes that Los Angeles and San Francisco unified
school districts, which are providing GPAs to CSAC for all
seniors, have experienced net savings associated with high
school counselors no longer having to complete paper forms for
students. The author also notes that CSAC reported processing
over 70,000 paper GPA forms in 2013, requiring significant staff
resources.
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Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081