In a move to cut state spending, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released a plan this week that would completely phase out the Cal Grant program over the next three years.
The proposal would eliminate all new grants, including those that have already been tentatively offered to over 80,000 students statewide. Although the 46,000 students within the UC system who currently receive Cal Grants would be eligible for renewals, the maximum award would not be increased to compensate for future UC and CSU fee hikes.
‘The size and scope of the international recession and [the need for California to] close a $24 billion budget gap have required us to put proposals on the table that would have been unthinkable just a few short months ago, and phasing out the Cal Grant program is one clear example of that,’ Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer said.
Palmer said students could turn to private lenders to pay their educational fees if the Cal Grant program is eliminated.
According to UC spokesman Ricardo Vazquez, the proposal would result in a loss of about $110 million in financial aid for UC undergraduates in the 2009-10 academic year alone.
‘We think the eventual elimination of the Cal Grant program would have a devastating impact on low- and middle-income students who attend the UC,’ Vazquez said.
Vazquez said the university’s own institutional aid would be able to back-fill some or all of the funding gap left by the proposed cuts for at least the 2009-10 academic year. However, he said this solution would come at the expense of other financial-aid recipients.
‘The consequence of that is not just for those 46,000 students who are Cal Grant recipients, but for a lot more students who receive financial aid,’ Vazquez said. ‘The amount our students would have to work and borrow would increase significantly.’
Earlier this month, the UC Board of Regents voted to increase systemwide fees for the 2009-10 academic year by 9.3 percent. UC President Mark G. Yudof defended the increases, which amount to an additional $662 per student, by claiming that a new program called the Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan ‘mdash; which promises to provide cover systemwide fees for students with household incomes below the state median ‘mdash; would protect the university’s most vulnerable students from the fee hikes.
However, Vazquez said he could not confirm that the guarantees of the Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan would remain intact in future years if Schwarzenegger’s proposal were to be passed. He said the university is still assessing the potential consequences of Schwarzenegger’s plan.
‘Longer term, as the [Cal Grant] program is phasing out, then the impact could grow,’ Vasquez said. ‘So yes, it’s very troubling. There’s no definite answer right now in terms of the future beyond 2009-10 because we will have to look at all the alternatives.’
UCSD College Democrats President Sean Quirk said Schwarzenegger’s plan would dramatically effect the academic experiences of 250,000 students ‘mdash; by either forcing them to drop out or severely endangering their academic careers.
‘It would be a complete disaster,’ Quirk said. ‘The repercussions would be enormous.’
A protest against the proposed cuts, organized by a student coalition, will be held tomorrow at Library Walk from noon until 2 p.m.
‘The main action is to try to convince [Chancellor Marye Anne Fox] to condemn the proposed elimination to the Cal Grant program,’ Quirk said. ‘Then we’ll be contacting representatives, assemblymen and state senators who are going to be voting on the budget soon to make sure this [proposed cut] doesn’t happen.’
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