In a time where our country remains divided by many topics, one topic stands out in our state: education. Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown proposed a plan to phase out the taxpayer-funded Middle Class Scholarship in expectations to save the state about $116 million and close a nearly $2 billion budget gap, leaving closely 50,000 California students with out the financial aid that they need.
The governor’s budget states, “to maintain the broad Cal Grant entitlement for the state’s neediest students, the Budget proposes a phase‐out of the Middle Class Scholarship Program. Beginning in 2017‐18, awards will be renewed only for the approximately 37,000 students who received awards in 2016‐17, with no new awards for the program. By 2020‐21, this proposal will reduce annual General Fund costs by $115.8 million.”
“It saddens me that higher education is becoming impossible to obtain. Tuition is going up and federal funding is going down. In a sense, they are privatizing higher education, making it impossible for ‘middle class’ families to pay for college,” California State University, Stanislaus (Stan State), student Sonia Tinoco (senior, Sociology) said.
Tinoco has only received the scholarship for one year, making her part of the 85,000 students that have been awarded the Middle Class Scholarship since the scholarship started in 2014.
After four years at Stan State, Tinoco was no longer being awarded with Cal Grant B nor the Pell Grant, causing her to pay out-of-pocket for her full tuition. By the end of her last fall semester, she was informed that she qualified for the Middle Class Scholarship. She was reimbursed and used the scholarship towards her last semester’s tuition fees at Stan State.
“It [Middle Class Scholarship] saved me a lot of stress and money since I work two jobs to pay for my tuition,” Tinoco said. “Middle class families are struggling to keep up with the system because they make ‘too much’ to receive help, yet don’t make enough to pay for tuition without taking out a loan. Students across California need the Middle Class Scholarship in order to afford college.”
The Middle Class Scholarship is awarded to families whose annual incomes fall short of $156,000.  The average Middle Class Scholarship size in the California State University (CSU) system size is $900.
The possible cut of the Middle Class Scholarship will not affect the Cal Grant nor the Dream Act funds.
H.D Plamer, a spokesman for Gov. Brown’s Department of Finance, told KCRA that the budget shortage was due to the state’s financial projections being higher than the money the state took in. Palmer also stated that they hope that students who are awarded the Middle Class Scholarship continue to receive the financial help that they have received this far.
However, there is immense support from the legislature to keep the Middle Class Scholarship accessible to students. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon has criticized the California governor for forgetting about the middle class and assured to “keep college affordable” by defending the scholarship.
The Student Trustee on the CSU Board of Trustee and the only voting students member, Maggie White states that it is “doubly unfortunate” that such possible scholarship cut is being proposed at a time when the University of California (UC) has raised tuition and the CSU is considering a tuition increase as well.
“We need to offer as much financial aid as we can, as a state, to lower-income students who otherwise largely wouldn’t be able to attend college. But it’s also important to remember that college isn’t affordable for many middle-income families either,” White said. “If we want to see a strong, diverse workforce in the next several years, then the state of California needs to invest heavily in its public universities and make them accessible for everyone who does the hard work to be qualified for entry.”