The Daily Delegate

Making College Accessible

Students from all over California marched to the Capitol calling for more funding for higher education in Sacramento, California, Monday, March 4, 2013. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP)

Worldwide it is known that attending post secondary school is too expensive for some students to afford, especially if you are planning on attending a private college. For low to middle income students in California, this could change. The Assembly of Higher Education Committee is proposing the California College Access Act, which will alleviate the cost of attending colleges in a way that could impact generations to come. California Student Aid Commission – CSAC provides financial aid for Californians – such as scholarships and grants – for many academic causes, including college. CSAC already helps students cover college expenses, so how is it relevant to making college cheaper? CSAC is imperative to the bill’s success, because it has the fundamentals of what is needed, it just needs to provide support for more people! There are 2 major changes to CSAC that would need to be made in order to achieve this goal.

1. Funding for scholarships and grants needs to be increased. This could be done by increasing the percentage of tax money that is sent to CSAC from the general fund. This would not increase taxes, it would just send a larger percentage of them to CSAC
2.  In order to help more people, the size of the audience must be increased. This bill would raise the maximum income cap for students to be eligible for financial aid.

With these critical changes, financial support could be more accessible to Californian students and alleviate the cost of attending colleges in California.

by: Rudy Gloo