After several years of tuition freezes the cost of going to public universities in California may be going up again. Last week the state Board of Trustees approved a 5% tuition hike and earlier this year the -- released a 2.5 % increased. They have not been allocated enough money by the state to cover rising costs. Has been a big focus on how much it costs to go to college from the speeches of candidate Bernie Sanders to a proposal in the California assembly to expand student aid programs there's an effort to figure out how to make higher education more affordable joining us to talk about college affordability is an eight executive director of California student aid commission. Welcome to the program. Thank you it's a pleasure. Many students testified before the Cal State trustees asking them -- sometimes pleading not to raise tuition. The increase will at about $270 for in-state student tuition it does not sound like much but tell us what that means to a struggling student. The increase is a lot for a struggling student particularly and low income student. Likely the Governor and our legislature has been very generous and progressive with our student financial aid so we have a very generous Cal grant program which pays tuition and fees so for really low income students that increase should be covered but what is not covered sometimes depending on what the students GPA is is that any student above $50,000 which does not have a three point oh GPA does not get it covered.'s Domain -- that will take you longer to complete their education. Can you explain how that dynamic works? For some students that are paying for their education and working along with taking some loans and grant if there is an additional expense they will have to work more not take the class. For students on financial aid the increase should be covered. The increase from what I have learned is really to be able to lower class sizes to offer more classes because part of the reason the students are not graduating on time is because they do not have access to the classes they need. That is a question I was going to ask you. They said they do not get enough to cover the students qualifying for admission a fine minimart once classroom slabs teacher so you say students are actually doing those lack of resources. I think they are. The students are also complaining on the other end that they are not getting access to the classes they need the degrees or the major they want are impacted and they want access to them. Part of that increase is to increase the number of professors and to open the labs that are needed in order for those students to avail themselves of those careers or degrees and certificates that are needed. On the other hand the students that are already struggling to afford the cost of attendance this is one more added layer of cost that they were not anticipating. We talked about students who are very low income who get there tuition covered pretty much completely. One of the things that Governor Brown wants to cut from this year's budget is the middle class scholarship program. How has that program helped students? That has helped students primarily for students between 100,000 and 156,000 for their parents income. That's on a sliding scale. The lower end of that veteran you can't get up to 40% tuition fees. It's not all of it but it's a portion. If you go higher on the income scale you get a smaller amount because it went from 0 to 100 6000. There are some students that were not covered that ended up getting covered by this scholarship. [Indiscernible] how likely do you think that is considering what we have heard from him about his concerns for overall funding from Washington. I do not think that is likely. Think he will stand by the proposals that he put out in January. I think it is really up to the legislature to make it a priority to keep financial aid programs whole so it will really be about the assembly and Senate protecting those programs. Just a quick word about this proposal from the assembly. Speaker Anthony Rendon to make college debt free to expand student aid programs to cover tuition and living expenses and those incidental expenses that are so detrimental to so many college students that they wanted a huge that's at the end of their school years is that an idea that is equal gained traction. It is the most comprehensive proposal nationally. A lot of the programs really focus on tuition. But not the entire cost of attendance. In California living expenses food and transportation is really expensive. I think there's a lot of details that still need to be ironed out but the ideas that the assembly speaker and leadership is really interested in meeting unmet needs has not been done nationally I have been speaking with Trent eight. Thank you so much.
After several years of tuition freezes, the cost of going to a public university in California is going up again.
Last week, the California State University Board of Trustees approved a 5 percent tuition hike and earlier this year, the University of California regents approved a 2.5 percent increase.
Both university systems said they have not been allocated enough money from the state to offset rising costs.
At the same time, students continue to rack up debt. Americans now owe more than $1.3 trillion in student loan debt.
What’s being done to make going to a California public university more affordable? And can a new plan to help students graduate debt-free gain traction in the state legislature?
Lupita Cortez Alcalá, executive director of the California Student Aid Commission, discussed the college affordability crisis, Wednesday on Midday Edition.
