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The 2,300 UCSD students who were offered a total of $13 million in Cal Grants next year may not be seeing that money anytime soon.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s newest budget revision attempts to partially solve California’s $24 billion budget deficit by eliminating over $800 million in funding to the University of California, as well as cutting all new Cal Grant awards and halting future award increases for grant renewals.
According to university spokeswoman Stacie Spector, 7,300 UCSD undergraduates ‘mdash; about one third of the UCSD student body ‘mdash; currently receives about $51 million in Cal Grants.
Under Schwarzenegger’s plan, these students would be eligible to continue to receive the grants, though the maximum award would not be increased to compensate for future UC fee hikes.
Additionally, a public letter released by the California Student Aid Commission last Thursday warned that Cal Grant offers for next year are tentative and subject to final approval within the 2009-10 state budget.
By eliminating all new Cal Grants, which have already been tentatively offered to 80,000 students statewide, the state would save an estimated $173 million in 2009-10 and $450 million in 2010-11.
Spector said that if the Legislature approves the cuts, the university would attempt to spread the impacts evenly throughout the student population, decreasing the amount of financial aid received by all students and ‘significantly increasing the amount that financial-aid students would be expected to work and borrow.’
Spector added that financial-aid award packages would likely show an increase in private loans and a growth in unsubsidized PLUS loans.
‘We encourage students to budget wisely and make good decisions in regard to discretionary spending,’ Spector said. ‘Additionally, we would anticipate that students may opt to work more to help meet costs ‘hellip; [They] will also have to manage work and study time to maintain good academic standing and graduate in a timely manner.’
For some students, though, extra shifts at the dining hall won’t be enough to fill the gap left by the elimination of the Cal Grant program.
‘I have no parents supporting me through college,’ Muir College freshman Alexandra Chwalik said. ‘Financial aid is the only thing getting me here, and if Cal Grants were cut, I would have to take a year off of school to work full-time.’
A.S. Vice President of External Affairs Gracelynne West expressed the same concern.
‘If these May revision proposals pass, I do not know how myself and countless others who depend on the Cal Grant will be retained at the university,’ West said. ‘As a low-income, first-generation college student, the detrimental cuts to the Cal Grant will place me at a greater disadvantage.’
On Monday, UC President Mark G. Yudof asked the Joint Legislative Conference Committee to reject Schwarzenegger’s proposal, describing the devastating impact that the $800 million in budget cuts would have on the university.
He said the cuts would force the university to further reduce freshman enrollment, revisit fee increases for the 2009-10 academic year and implement more furloughs, layoffs and salary reductions.
‘The effect on families under $60,000 is really unbelievable,’ Yudof said in a statement. ‘I think everything’s going to suffer, but anything we put off, like fixing a leaky roof, to keep the basic instructional staff in place and allow students to graduate on time ‘hellip; [is what] we’re going to be working hardest to preserve, and that has to be the highest priority.’
Yudof said that students and their families need to be given more notice before cuts of this severity are passed.
‘The long-term solution for our economy is to heighten investment in UC, the CSU and the community colleges,’ Yudof said. ‘In the near term, unfortunately, the utter severity of the cuts pr
oposed leaves us only difficult options to consider.’
Readers can contact Yelena Akopian at [email protected].