More Elderly from the CA High School applying for financial aid

Nearly three -quarters of the elderly in California for public schools applied for federal financial aid this year, raising last year’s 11 percent data and giving additional indications that California’s efforts to make more students apply for federal grants.

This time last year, about 307,000 adult high schools completed a financial assistance application. This year this issue is about 340,000. The California Student Aid Commission, which monitors the help of college in the country, has released the information today.

In 2023, a slightly higher share of adults fulfilled applications for help – about 74% by this year 72.7%. In 2024 the figure was 64%.

“We need to take some time to reflect and celebrate this achievement for the future of California,” says Daisy Gonzalez, CEO of the Commission and earlier, who led the State College System in the Community, said in a statement. “With more elderly people applying for financial assistance, we can expect our segments of higher education to serve more students.” A commission spokesman, Shelveen Ratnam, said Gonzalez and other commission leaders were not available for interview today.

State legislation of 2021 required high schools to guarantee their elderly to graduate Financial Aid ApplicationsS Ignoring the application refuses students the opportunity to receive $ 22,000 or more state and federal financial assistance during their first year at the College. Last year, the committee conducted a market analysis to understand why parents and students did not apply for help. Among the answers: families were skeptical This help can actually be free.

California is expected spend about $ 2.9 billion With regard to the financial assistance of students in 2025-26, the main reason why more than half of California residents do not pay training to visit state universities.

Immigration concerns do not suppress applications

The data that the Commission shared with Calmatters also show that more students whose parents do not have legal immigration status applied to federal financial assistance than last year. Somewhat surprisinglyThis year’s data exceeds those of 2023.

Revelation for now rejects concerns that the repression of Trump’s immigration will encourage more college students to leave federal money on the table to try To protect their parentsS

About 64,700 high school students from so -called mixed status families filled a federal application for financial assistance or FAFSA in 2023 until the deadline on September 2. In 2024, the figure dropped to just under 60,000. This year it jumped to over 69,000.

The number of the committee covers the number of students who applied for state and federal financial aid in the spring to attend four years of universities and students who apply until September 2 to be entitled to attend colleges in the Community. The decline in 2024 was due to the main technological problems with the updated FAFSA This is blocking Tens of thousands of students whose parents did not have the social security number to fill in the application for help.

Unlike federal assistance applications, the application of its own Dream Law in California does not share consumer data with federal agencies. The greater part of the students completed FAFSA despite only for state aidS Other non -profit organizations focused on access to college have given similar tips.

Approximately 3.3 million Californians live in households with mixed statusIncluding 1 in 5 children under 18, according to 2021 data from the Share Research Institute, the USC Research Group.

The California Dream Request gives students access to a refusal of government training and several thousand dollars in other grants, but FAFSA is the only way for students to receive federal student loans and Pell grant, which can provide more than $ 7,000 a year to low -income studentsS

The Student Assistance Commission and its financial support partners hosted more than 1,200 seminars to complete financial assistance applications this year and have trained over 16,000 professionals to help students apply for assistance.