by Suzanne Potter
California News Service
Just 14 percent of California’s 94,000 undocumented college students receive some form of state financial aid, according to a new report.
Researchers from the California Student Aid Commission found that only half of the people who are eligible for state aid for higher education even apply.
Marlene García, the commission’s executive director, said a lot of community college undocumented students apply to get their fees waived for coursework, but don’t realize they could get a Cal Grant to help with living expenses.
Paperwork appears to be one of the issues.
“They may be applying for the College Promise, and they think that they’ve completed the financial aid application,” said García. “But then, they find out they have to complete the California Dream Act application. And sometimes, you’ll lose students in that process.”
Starting this year, state law requires all high school seniors to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or the California Dream Act application, so school counselors are going to have their hands full.
García said many steps could be taken at the federal level to help undocumented students, including making the Pell Grant available, or reviving the DACA program and extending its provisions to allow students to have the right to work.
“If you’re an undocumented student and you don’t have work authorization to get a job after you graduate from college,” said García, “that’s going to raise the question about where the value proposition is for a college degree for you.”
Another barrier is the requirement that undocumented students sign an affidavit that they attended at least three years of high school in California. A new bill now in the California Legislature would integrate that affidavit into the California Dream Act application.
Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.
Advocates Launch Campaign to Prevent Harmful Health-Care Mergers
Billboards have gone up across California warning about the negative effects of unchecked mergers in the health-care system. The Protect California Patients campaign is a coalition of more than 30 organizations that support Assembly Bill 1091, which would give the attorney general more oversight on mergers worth more than $15-million.
Rachel Linn Gish is director of communications for Health Access California, which is helping lead the campaign.
“For 30 years, the Attorney General has successfully overseen many health-care mergers. That makes sure that patients are protected, that vital services are continued, and that prices don’t spike. And we want to extend that oversight to other entities in the market, like for-profit hospitals” she said.
The billboards are visible on roadways in Northern California, the Central Valley and in Los Angeles. Find out more about the campaign on the website at ProtectCAPatients.
In a statement, the California Hospital Association said the bill is unnecessary because the state already has an Office of Healthcare Affordability. The CHA also asserted AB 1091 would prohibit many arrangements between health-care providers and payers, making it more expensive and unpredictable to partner.
Gish said after a merger, however, companies often eliminate services they see as duplicative – which can force patients to travel farther to find a quality hospital.
“Health care is a business,” she said. “So, the bottom line is often to make money, and in order to do so, a lot of times that means increasing costs for patients or cutting vital access to services for patients, if they’re deemed not profitable. This could be things like labor and delivery rooms, emergency-room departments, and things like that.”
The new oversight would also cover future mergers of religiously affiliated health systems, which currently provide one in six hospital beds in California but often restrict reproductive services, including contraception, abortion, miscarriage management, tubal ligation and gender-affirming care.
