The CA College Affordability Summit

During this session, WestEd, uAspire, and CCGI will conduct an input and feedback session on the creation of a statewide AB469 resource hub. The focus of this session will be to gather critical insights from educators, counselors, and administrators on the ground to facilitate the creation of a website with actionable resources and tools to increase FAFSA and CADAA completion rates.

Data and tracking are essential for supporting students through the financial aid process. Participants in this session will learn how to:

• Maximize WebGrants access on their campus 
• Use reports to identify students who have applied but not processed
• When to edit and match a student’s GPA to their application 
• Week-by-week plan to assess the status of their students
• Race to Submit dashboard overview 

University of California, Merced has partnered with the local K12 school districts on their efforts to support students and families through the financial aid application process. Participants of this session will learn how the leaders of UC Merced have made a commitment to their K12 districts to support their financial aid application efforts ensuring that all students have access to resources. From financial aid presentations to utilizing staff to work at their local high schools, UC Merced has adopted a model that supports all high school students.

Community Based Organizations exist to support the counseling and advising process by building relationships with students, as early as middle school, helping them navigate through the admissions and financial aid processes. This session will cover best practices to strengthen the K-12 partnership and how Community Based Organizations can support financial aid application completion.

The California Student Opportunity and Access Program (Cal-SOAP) is instrumental in improving the flow of information about postsecondary education and financial aid while raising the achievement levels of low-income, secondary school students or geographic regions with documented low-eligibility or college participation rates, and who are first in their families to attend college. Participants of this session will learn how the 16 Cal- SOAP projects operate, support financial aid application completion throughout the state, and offer best practices for partnering with K12 school districts.

The Val Verde Unified School District has repeatedly had one of the highest financial aid completion rates in the state of California. This session will cover Val Verde’s best practices to ensure a systemic approach to Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) /California Dream Act Application (CADAA) completion and will explore how they leverage their existing internal and external resources to fund activities associated with this initiative. We will also give examples of how school districts can utilize goals associated with their Board of Education and Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) to increase their college-going rates through FAFSA/CADAA completion. This session will be informative and relevant to the work of school districts, site administrators, board members, counselors, and activity directors. 

This presentation will discuss comprehensive school wide strategies that were implemented at Jurupa Hills High School to increase our FAFSA/CADAA rate. The team will discuss utilizing reports used from the CSAC (WebGrants) portal to inform progress and teacher/counselor interventions. This session will also cover best practices for utilizing a senior intervention period such as senior seminar and partnering with instructional staff to support students.

In this session, attendees will learn how to best assist students after they submit their financial aid application. To start, attendees will learn about the GPA editing and matching process on WebGrants.  They will also be able to demonstrate to students how to create their WebGrants4Students (WG4S) account and how to complete some of the requirements once students have been awarded their Cal Grant.  There will also be recommendations on how to assist students to be their own financial aid advocates and how to find additional resources and scholarships in preparation for college.