By Nate Macay, Nov. 15, 2022
On Sep. 30 Gov. Gavin Newsom approved Assembly Bill 288 which eliminates scholarship displacement at public and private institutions in the state, ensuring that schools do not reduce institutional grants and funds.
Previously, if a student was awarded a scholarship, their financial aid would decrease so the student would not receive more funds than the cost of attendance. The decrease caused some students to lose out on extra funds to support themselves
According to Charles Conn, associate director of Financial Aid and Scholarships, students should receive the most aid as possible, but there are times due to federal rules where a reduction is required to keep the student within the overall cost of attendance.
“It varies based on the student’s situation,” Conn said. “The formula of all aid is cost of attendance minus EFC equals a student’s need, but at the end of the day all sources of aid cannot go beyond a student’s cost of attendance.”
The new law which goes into effect for the 2023-2024 school year prevents institutions from taking away extra aid the student received.
Christina Tangalakis, president of Associate Dean of Student Financial Services for the California Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said students should always feel empowered to receive resources.
“Scholarships are still a valuable resource,” said Tangalakis, adding that “this law should help stabilize and maximize funds.”
According to Conn, when a student receives an outside scholarship that takes them over the cost of attendance, financial aid would reduce loans first, since students prefer to receive the most amount of free aid possible.
“Our goal is always to try to have students receive as much gift or free aid as possible,” said Conn. “If they are getting another source of funding that’s considered gift aid, we want them to get that, we don’t want to take away some of the money, it doesn’t do us any good and it doesn’t do our students any good.”
Conn mentioned CPP does encourage students to apply for private scholarships and added that the bill doesn’t change anything that financial aid has been doing.
“It was really about the independent or private universities that may have been having policies where they reduced institutional money,” Conn said. “If the school said the student was eligible for institutional money, they should still get the institutional money, regardless if they were receiving private money.”
Hospitality Management student, Katie Wilson, believes that students should get the most money possible when attending college.
“It can be hard to pay for tuition,” said Wilson. “Especially as a public university, there should be more opportunities for students to get funding.”
Feature image by Nate Macay