Assembly Standing Committee on Higher Education

I'd like to call the Assembly Higher Education Committee meeting to order. Welcome to as we get settled here, welcome to today's Assembly Committee on Higher Education. Whether you're here in person or watching virtually, I welcome each and every one of you. I will now go over some key elements of the structure of today's hearing. Please note, while this hearing will not have phone testimony, we are accepting written testimony through the position letter portal on a Committee's website at

www.ahed.assembly.ca.gov. Additionally, please note that the guideline for bills heard in this Committee is to allow testimony from two lead witnesses in support and two lead witnesses in opposition to speak for no more than two minutes each.

Stakeholder groups and entities that are neither in support nor in opposition will be allowed to give testimony for no more than two minutes when a call for tweeners if a measure has more than two entities in the tweener category, only two will be allowed to speak for more than two minutes for two minutes each.

Because of the urgency of this measure and the time sensitive need for my colleagues and I to return to a floor session after the lead witnesses have finished their testimony, please be advised we may not be able to accommodate hearing your name, affiliation, position on Bill taken up in today's hearing if we adjourn prior to your speaking. Please note that you can submit your position in writing via the legislative portal that I referenced earlier. For Members of the Committee.

Members, if you'd like to respond to a roll call, ask a question, provide a comment. Please be sure you activate your mic and speak into your mic. For author of measures of today, please provide an opening statement and closing statement. As previously stated, your two lead witnesses will each have two minutes of pride testimony. And today we have one measure on the agenda today. We have one item up today. And I'll have Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

Fong? Fong, here. Ta, here. Arambula, here. Boerner, here. Chen? Essayli? Irwin?Jackson? Lowe? Juan Carrillo?

Thank you so much, Madam Secretary. We do have a quorum, and I'd like to welcome Assembly Member Juan Carrillo to today's hearing replacement for Assembly Muratsuchi. Welcome to the Committee Assembly Juan Carrillo. Now, next up, I'd like to welcome our author of our measure today, Assembly Bill 1887, authored by Assembly Member Sabrina Cervantes. Welcome. Motion is second. Welcome, Assembly Member.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Committee Members, thank you for the opportunity to present Assembly Bill 1887 today, which will extend the application deadline for state financial aid programs from April 2 to May 2. These programs include the Cal Grant and Middle Class Scholarship Programs. As you know, this Bill is a response to the ongoing issue with the Federal Government's implementation of the new Federal Free Application for Federal Student Aid, commonly known as FAFSA.

In late 2020, Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act, which was intended to streamline the FAFSA and make it more accessible to working families. The project of revamping the FAFSA was begun under the previous Presidential Administration and has continued under the current President. Unfortunately, due to reduced staffing levels and delays implementing the necessary technology updates, the rollout of the new FAFSA has not been easy. As you all know, and has been reported widely through the press.

There have been several setbacks and false starts in making the FAFSA available to students in California. Last year, the new FAFSA was activated two months behind schedule, reducing the amount of time students have to complete the FAFSA. As chair of the California Latino Legislative Caucus, I want to highlight an issue affecting many students with parents who are undocumented. They have run into a persistent error message preventing them from completing the FAFSA without providing a parent Social Security number.

This has left students with undocumented parents unable to apply for State and Federal financial aid for college, even though they themselves are United States citizens or permanent residents. These FAFSA implementation issues also delay the timeline for colleges and universities to make admission decisions, providing financial aid award offers, and complete their enrollment process. Because of these problems, as part of last year's state budget, the Legislature delayed the application deadline for state financial aid programs to April 2.

However, many of these issues with the revamped FAFSA have persisted, which has led to a significant reduction in the number of students who have completed the FAFSA. Nationwide, student FAFSA submissions are down nearly 33% compared to the previous academic year. Clearly, our students need our help. They need more time to complete the FAFSA, making students making their dreams of achieving higher education more affordable and accessible, and it's our duty to ensure that we pass this legislation.

To that end, AB 1887 will further extend the application deadline for state financial aid programs to May 2. Because this Bill has an urgency clause, this extension would take effect immediately. This Bill will also allow the Federal Government to have more time to solve the ongoing issues with FAFSA implementation, including the barrier preventing students with undocumented parents from completing the FAFSA.

The extension will also match the decisions made by many of the universities to extend their enrollment deadlines beyond the traditional May 1 cut off. With me today, we have the California students who are eagerly waiting for our help to begin their college careers. I want to just quickly thank our Speaker, Speaker Robert Rivas and Senate ... Mike McGuire for working with me to move this Bill quickly through the legislative process so that we can be responsive to the urgent need of our students.

With me to testify in support of the Bill, we have Jake Brymner with the California Student Aid Commission, as well as Marcos Montes from the Southern California College Attainment Network.

Thank you so much. Welcome.

Good afternoon. Thank you, Assembly Member Cervantes, thank you Chair Fong, Members of the Committee. Thank you. My name is Marcos Montes. I am the policy Director for the Southern California College Attainment Network. We're an organization, a network of about a little bit over 120 college access organizations in the Southern California region. Together, we serve about 350,000 families in the region. The rollout of the new, better FAFSA, has created a very difficult situation for the college access field.

This has been one of the most complicated years for us in advising and working with students. The fafsa has had so many glitches. Particularly, I also want to echo what Assembly Members Cervantes brought up about the glitch that was preventing mixed status households, families, and this could be students who have contributors without a Social Security number. They are still facing huge challenges, and they have not even been able to submit a complete application up until last week.

Even though the feds announced a solution, many call that a work in progress, because there's still technical glitches that are preventing them from completing their application. With the FAFSA deadline only two weeks out, it's going to be very difficult to get all those students to submit. Based off last year's numbers, it was over 100,000 students in California that submitted a FAFSA with a contributor without a Social Security number.

Those students have a huge risk of being left out and not being able to submit a FAFSA application. That's why a group of 56 college access organizations have called on the California leaders and higher ed leaders to extend the deadlines, make sure that students have enough time to submit the FAFSA, to be able to evaluate their award letters that they're going to be receiving from the campuses, and to be able to make a decision of where they're going to go to college.

For those incoming students, it's a decision that's going to impact the rest of their lives. And without an extension of the deadlines, they're going to have to make a very rushed and maybe misinformed decision. Along with the April 2 deadline. Our group is also calling for the systems to extend registration deadlines for incoming students, and we're calling for both deadlines to be extended by four weeks. AB 1887 does exactly that, moving the deadline from April 2 to May 2.

So we are in support of the Southern California College Attainement Networks in support of the Bill, and we appreciate you all bringing this as an emergency matter in the Legislature.

Thank you so much. Welcome.

Good afternoon, Chair Fong and Committee Members. First, my apologies for my tardiness. I just ran over here as soon as I'd heard that the hearing had been moved up in timing, but really appreciate the urgency with which Assembly Member Cervantes and this Committee are approaching this issue. I'm Jake Brymner. I'm the Deputy Director for Policy and Public Affairs with the California Student Aid Commission.

As I suspect you've heard, federal legislation set this process into motion of simplifying the FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid that didn't come with resources to support implementation. And in the time since then, the launch of the application itself has been delayed, initially by three months past its usual October 1 opening. And that, of course, has already limited the time with which we provide students to apply for financial aid.

And of topmost concern have been some technology glitches that have really prevented mixed status families, students who are themselves citizens and entitled to federal financial aid. These technical issues have prevented them from applying. Based on data that we collected last year through our applications, we estimate that as many as 100,000 California students could be in this circumstance where they had one parent that did not list a Social Security number on that application.

Other estimates I've seen suggest that it could be as many as 12% of our graduating high school senior classes that have one family Member who may not have a Social Security number. So the Department of Education had recently announced a fix so that many of these students can start their FAFSA and complete. However, there are still issues, and there's been a known bug with this process itself. So we at the Student Aid Commission, we've been preparing technical adjustments for our California Dream Act Application.

That's the state based application that we use to consider students for Cal Grant, Middle Class Scholarship and other aid when they may not qualify for federal financial aid. And there's other glitches with the FAFSA that impact other students whose parents both have Social Security numbers. National College Attainment Network publishes data based on proxies that allow us to get some insight while we're not receiving data yet, ourselves at the Student Aid Commission to estimate how many high school seniors have already completed an application for financial aid.

Based on data through March 8th, approximately 173,000 students, that's about 31% of the high school senior class, had completed a FAFSA. However, that represents almost a 43% drop from where we were at the same time last year. And the data most concerningly seems to suggest that these drops are more acute at the schools that serve low income students or large populations of students of color.

Given the decreased rate of application thus far, the challenges that are still being experienced by many of our families, particularly those who are mixed status, AB 1887 provides more time for us to work with students to apply for financial aid and to work through these challenges. And again, we appreciate the leadership by Assembly Member Cervantes, the Legislature, the Administration to collaborate, to come together to make sure that we maximize opportunities for our students to apply for financial aid here in California.

And, of course, I'm here to help with any questions that might arise. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Are there witnesses in support in the hearing room? And if everyone could be very brief today, really appreciate that.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members Jessica Dong with the University of California in strong Support.

Good afternoon Chair and Members Nune Garipian, on behalf of the Community College League of California and Strong Support.

Thank you chair and Members Austin Webster with W Strategies. I'll try to be brief on behalf of the Academic Extended for California Community colleges, Anaheim Union High School District, the Community College Association for Occupational Ed, CCCAOE, the Extended Opportunities Programs and Services Associations, the Faculty Association for the Community Colleges and Scaling Student Success in support.

Thank you chair Members. Mark MacDonald, MGI Advocacy on behalf of a number of local community college districts, San Diego, Southwestern, Peralta, Contra Costa, Antelope Valley, San Bernardino, Kern, Mount San Jacinto. Also David Nevin couldn't be here and asked that I submit support from the Los Angeles Community College District, El Camino, Santa Monica, Pasadena, all in support of this bell and thank you very much for bringing it forward.

Hi, Carol Gonzalez here on behalf of Españas Organized for Political Equality and Long Beach City College. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Silvia Solis Shaw here on behalf of the California Faculty representing the over 29,000 professors, faculty, counselors and coaches of the CSU system, in strong support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Imran Majid, on behalf of the Community College Chancellor's office in support, our student partners over at the Student Senate for California Community colleges couldn't attend today, but also grateful for the assemblywoman's leadership and support this measure. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Rachel Mueller, on behalf of NextGen California, in strong support. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Are there witnesses in opposition in the hearing room? Are there tweeners in the hearing room? Colleagues, any questions or comments? Seeing none, Assembly Member, we'd like to close.

Respectfully, on behalf of the students in California who are eagerly, eagerly awaiting our help, I ask for your aye vote on 1887. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Assembly Member Cervantes, for bringing this urgent matter forward here today, with the various delays and glitches, with the new Federal Free Application for Financial Student Aid form, our students and their parents and guardians have endured much uncertainty, as you have indicated.

By extending a deadline for the form to be submitted, thousands of students, including those who come from mixed status households, will have a much higher likelihood of learning what their financial aid packages consist of before making and needing to commit to which college or university they will attend in the fall. I look forward to supporting the measure here today with that. Madam Secretary, roll call please

File item number one. AB 1887. The motion is do passed to the floor. Fong? Fong, Aye. Ta, aye. Arambula? Arambula, aye. Boerner? Boerner, aye. Chen? Chen aye. Essayli? Essayli, aye. Irwin? Irwin, aye. Jackson? Jackson, aye. Low? Low, aye. Juan Carrillo?

That measure has 10 I and is out. Thank you so much, Assembly Member, and thank you so much, colleagues, for us meeting. This meeting of the Assembly Higher Education Committee is adjourned.