Financial aid is complicated, the value of simplifying it is easy to understand

COURTESY OF: EdSource Sacramento State students line up to pay bills and receive financial aid information. Every fall, thousands of aspiring and continuing college students across California, particularly those from low-income communities and communities of color, grapple with the problem of how to finance a college degree. Today’s students are put in an impossible situation. College graduates earn 80% more …

Colleges rush to sign students up for food stamps, as pandemic rules make more eligible

COURTESY OF: CalMatters Sacramento State student Madeline Waters prepares a meal, in her Sacramento home with ingredients provided by CalFresh on Tuesday, June 1, 2021. Photo by Rahul Lal for CalMatters College Journalism Network This past school year, Madeline Waters struggled to find a way to pay for food while also studying for classes. As a nutrition major at Sacramento …

How some college counselors are fighting back against pandemic-induced enrollment decline

COURTESY OF: CalMatters.org Brian Cruz photographed at Valley-Wide Recreation and Park District in San Jacinto on June 13, 2021. Photo by Nalani Hernandez-Melo for CalMatters In summary Thousands of California high school graduates didn’t go to college last year due to the pandemic. The drop, which mostly affected community colleges, might be temporary, but it showed the need to provide …

The Missing Students of The Pandemic

COURTESY OF: WashingtonPost.com INDIO, Calif. — Rich Pimentel had already tried searching in a trailer park and a migrant camp when he started driving toward the third and final address listed in the student’s school file. He followed his GPS to a neighborhood on the edge of the desert, an oasis of palm trees and swimming pools protected by a …

California Sees Steep Decline in Financial Aid Applications

COURTESY OF: PPIC.org The deadline to complete financial aid applications for fall 2021 passed last week, and preliminary data suggest that many California high school graduates may miss out on funding that helps provide access to college. Financial aid applications especially important for supporting college enrollment among low-income and other underrepresented students, including African Americans and Latinos. While the COVID-19 …

Pandemic Has Changed Main Challenges of School Counselors

COURTESY OF: TheJournal.com For once, the number of students an individual school counselor is responsible for advising wasn’t the overwhelming choice when they were asked to examine their day-to-day challenges. Many more school counselors responded that the big obstacles were getting access to students in a virtual environment (cited by 68 percent) and providing counseling and lessons to students in …