Last week, at the National College Attainment Network’s (NCAN) 2024 National Conference in Anaheim, CA, state partners and policy
leaders convened in a session to address pressing state policy concerns. In the meeting’s opening panel, “Increasing College Affordability Through State Policy,” NCAN Policy Council members Sam Aleinikoff (College AIM),
Deborah Martin (Florida College Access Network, or FCAN), and Marcos Montes (Southern California College Access Network,
or SoCal CAN) highlighted state policies, advocacy efforts, and initiatives aimed at improving postsecondary affordability in Georgia, Florida, and California.
State financial aid is critically important in making postsecondary education affordable – particularly for students from low-income backgrounds. Unlike federal financial aid, state grant programs come in all shapes and sizes. Programs vary in their eligibility
requirements, the size of the grants, whether they are need- or merit-based, whether they are first- or last-dollar, and how students must apply. For students in Florida and Georgia, for example, merit-aid programs like the Bright Futures and HOPE Scholarships are the largest source of funding, while California’s Cal Grant is primarily need-based.
Beyond the specifics of each state’s grant program, differences in political ecosystems and constellations of stakeholders have shaped priorities surrounding college cost and affordability goals.
Martin, Policy Manager at FCAN, kicked off the panel by sharing that, remarkably, tuition rates at Florida’s public colleges and universities have not risen in 10 years. As a result, the state has been ranked first in the country for higher education
by the US News & World Reports since the inception of the rankings in 2017. Martin explained that this trend was kickstarted by then-Governor
Rick Scott’s (R) decision to sign a bill into law that eliminated linking automatic
tuition increases to inflation, in 2014. With the help of advocacy efforts led by FCAN, and support from university leaders and partner organizations, this momentum has carried into the DeSantis (R) administration, which has prioritized investing
in higher education to keep tuition and fees flat for Florida students.
Aside from tuition and fees, the cost of living plays a key role in determining if and where students choose to enroll in postsecondary education. Montes, Policy Director at SoCal CAN, highlighted ongoing efforts to reform the Cal Grant and increase investment
in programs designed to fund the full cost of attendance for California students. The Cal Grant access award, Montes shared, which covers non-tuition expenses for Cal Grant B recipients, has considerably lost its purchasing power in recent years.
Among SoCal CAN’s top policy priorities is to increase funding to restore the power of the non-tuition grant, to ensure that the program allows students
to meet basic needs and persist through college.
Aleinikoff, founder and Executive Director of College AIM, chronicled his work as part of Georgians for College Affordability - a coalition pushing to establish a need-based state
aid program in Georgia – one of only two states in the country without a need-based grant. The merit-based HOPE scholarship, Georgia’s largest state grant aid program, is popular in the state, Aleinikoff explained, but the equity implications of merit-only
aid are significant. Generally, funding from the state’s merit-based programs is awarded to students with the financial means to afford college. Without a targeted, need-based state grant, many students underrepresented in higher education (first-generation
students, students of color, and those from families with low incomes) miss out on life changing grant aid dollars.
In addition to these primary policy objectives, panelists shared about related state-level goals and wins. At FCAN, the team is focused on addressing funding gaps in the Florida Student Assistance Grant – the state’s need-based grant program – which year over year, runs out of funding, leaving about 40% of eligible degree-seeking students at public institutions without a critical source of funding. At SoCal CAN, advocates are working with partners to push for consolidation of the eight Cal Grant programs into a simplified two – one for community college students and one for students
at bachelor’s-granting institutions. And as part of Georgians for College Affordability’s push for need-based aid, the group is working to expand access to state aid and in-state tuition for undocumented students.
Whether working to maintain an affordable public university system, pushing for streamlined grant applications and support for non-tuition expenses, or creating need-based aid to close equity gaps in postsecondary attainment, NCAN members are leading
the way in their work to improve the college affordability landscape.
To learn more about NCAN’s college affordability research, see here. For resources about effective state grant aid programs, see here.
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