New Research Probes California College Program

UCLA Education Professor Cecilia Rios-Aguilar Seeks to Make the Promise of College Come True for All Students.

BY JOHN MCDONALD

Cecilia Rios-Aguilar, a professor of education and the Associate Dean for Equity and Inclusion at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, is talking about the messages that in her view, the four-year highly selective higher education sector (i.e., the UC system) too often sends to low-income and minority students.

For Rios-Aguilar, that message is highly problematic.

“The conversation is too often focused on selectivity, and we signal that only a few people can get to the top. I don’t agree with that message,” Rios-Aguilar said. “We act like diversity is a scarce resource when diversity abounds in our educational system. There is so much talent in this state; it’s in our community colleges—diversity abounds in that sector. But we are sending the wrong message that only a few are chosen to excel in this state.”

Rios-Aguilar is working to change that. Through her research she is trying to better understand the experiences of community college students, the institutions that serve them and the strategies that can help them to pursue and succeed in higher education.

“There are so many inequities in the K–12 system and higher education. How do we set up a system to battle those inequities? That is the challenge,” she says.

One important resource for community college students that Rios-Aguilar is exploring is The California College Promise program established in 2018 through the passage of California Assembly Bill 19. Similarly to other college promise programs in other states and communities, the idea is to address issues of college affordability and increase college access and attainment, as well as the broader inequities that result in lower rates of college access and attainment among the most vulnerable groups of students.

Rios-Aguilar and Austin Like, a graduate student at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, examine the program in new research conducted in collaboration with Policy Analysis for California Education. Their study, “The California College Promise: A Promise to What, for Whom and Where,” identifies important challenges and highlights inequities among those who benefit from the program and where they live.While the California College Promise program is very new, their research identifies important challenges and highlights inequities in whom the program benefits and where.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CALIFORNIA COLLEGE PROMISE PROGRAM

The intent of AB 19 is to provide critical support to California community colleges to improve student preparation and access to college, increase community college degree completion and increase the number of students who transfer to CSU or UC institutions. Importantly, it also aims to reduce and eliminate regional achievement gaps, and the achievement gaps for lowincome students, ethnic minorities and other groups who have traditionally been underrepresented at community colleges. It is a small but important part of the complex system of financial aid that colleges use to support students.

California’s community colleges play an essential role in the state’s system of higher education, serving more than 2.1 million students. While the tuition for these students is low, when the total cost of attendance is considered, the average cost of attendance at community colleges for low-income students is significantly higher than attending other public universities in the state. Low-income students would need to spend about half of theirs and their families’ income in order to cover the total cost of attendance.

“Community college is not free,” Aguilar said. “The state’s most vulnerable college students face the most severe financial burden in pursuit of higher education. It is precisely why AB 19 was created.”

Through AB 19, the California College Promise provides districts and colleges with funds to waive some or all tuition and fees to first-time, full-time students who meet eligibility requirements, if the college or district chooses to use the funds for financial aid. The program provides college districts with discretion to “decide what is best for their students,” giving them flexibility to use the funds to waive fees or students or use the funds in other ways.

While the program is fairly new and available data is limited, the research by Rios-Aguilar and Lyke reports that 105 colleges received AB 19 funds. The colleges are using the funds in a variety of ways, including for tuition and fees, hiring of staff, and educational costs such as textbooks, transportation assistance and food vouchers.

"We act like diversity is a scarce resource when diversity abounds in our educational system. There is so much talent in this state; it’s in our community colleges— diversity abounds in that sector. But we are sending the wrong message that only a few are chosen to excel in this state."

A promise to WHAT for WHOM?

In the only available report on implementation of AB 19, colleges report significant equity concerns—specifically that the students benefitting from the program are not the ones that need it most.

Rios-Aguilar’s new research would appear to support that conclusion.

As noted, colleges are given considerable discretion in how they allocate and distribute AB 19 funds. Such discretion has resulted in discrepancies across racial and ethnic subgroups. The research details significant differences in the amount of aid awarded for fee waivers and for other educational costs such as books and transportation. Latino and White students received the most aid from AB 19 funding. The majority of aid to White students went to fees, while the largest share of aid for Latino students went to other costs. White students also received the largest average awards, $459, compared to $281 for Latino students and just $266 for African American Students.

The research underscores two important points: AB 19 funding comprises a relatively small proportion of spending and that it is unevenly distributed across students from racial and ethnic backgrounds.

“While a decentralized financial aid system affords districts discretion and flexibility, it is resulting in inequities in the amount and type of aid received by students,” Rios-Aguilar said. “And it is important to remember, that unlike the federal student loan program, AB 19 is explicitly designed to reduce achievement gaps among underrepresented students in the community college system.”

Another important and growing equity concern raised by the research is the impact of eligibility criteria that require recipients of the California College Promise program to be full-time students. Many students in community college work to afford the cost of attendance and more than 70 percent of those are enrolled on a part-time basis. These students face a significant barrier to meet full-time enrollment requirements and are unable to benefit from the California College Promise.

Average Awards by Race/Ethnicity

A promise for WHOM and WHERE?

“We are greatly concerned that a significant number of part-time students will be completely left out of the benefits of the program,” Rios-Aguilar said.

“We hope that California’s community colleges and the state’s policymakers will review the eligibility criteria, especially the full-time student status requirement, to help reduce inequities.”

In examining the College Promise program, Rios-Aguilar and Lyke also find that the financial aid awarded through available AB 19 funds is distributed unevenly across the state. More than 40 percent of the $14 million in AB 19 funds allocated in the 2018–19 academic year are concentrated in just four counties in California: Sacramento, Santa Clara, Los Angeles and Orange. Twenty-five counties did not distribute any AB 19 funds.

“This is a real problem. AB 19 explicitly states ‘reducing and eliminating regional achievement gaps’ as a primary goal,” Rios-Aguilar said.

“We are very concerned because we know that some of the highest levels of food and housing insecurity are occurring in the Central Valley and it is not clear to us what institutions in the region are doing with those funds.”

Even within counties the distribution of funds is uneven. For example, in Los Angeles County only five institutions reported awarding financial awards from AB 19 funds to students. The remaining institutions, including the Los Angeles Community College District, did not use AB 19 funds for student financial aid. Geography of AB 19 Funds Awarded in California

LOOKING FORWARD: A FOCUS ON EQUITY

In the research, Rios-Aguilar and Lyke acknowledge that the California College Promise and other promise programs are very new and that much more research is needed. But they believe the findings of their research make clear that the design and implementation of the California College Promise program needs to be carefully and systematically examined.

“When we look at this program, colleges are reporting significant equity concerns—they are basically saying that low-income students of color are not benefitting equally from this program,” Rios-Aguilar said.

“We need to look closely at the data. If we don’t, we may be reproducing the very inequities we want to address because the aid is going to the students who need it least.”

The full research brief including data and recommendations is available online at https://edpolicyinca.org/ publications/california-college-promise

Cecilia Rios-Aguilar is a professor of education and the Associate Dean for Equity and Inclusion at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. She also represents UCLA as one of five faculty directors for Policy Analysis for California Education.

Austin Lyke is a Ph.D. student at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.