Karla Montenegro Gonzalez: Good morning everyone. We're gonna start allowing participants to come in for the next three minutes. We will go ahead and start promptly.
In the meantime, if you would like to activate the closed captioning, it is readily available on the toolbar on the bottom of your Zoom screen.
If you just joined us we're waiting about three minutes for participants to come in. If you would like to activate the closed captioning, it's readily available on the toolbar on the bottom of your Zoom.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome, my name is Karla Montenegro Gonzalez and I am the DREAMer Support Lead here at Moorpark College.
Today we are in partnership, with our Financial Aid department and we're bringing you the latest updates for financial aid when it comes to
students who are undocumented/ DREAMers. Before we start, I do want to give you all a Zoom disclosure so
it's important to know that all the events, hosted by Moorpark College during the Undocumented Student Action Week have been configurated to the highest security for your protection.
You have the option to ask questions and participate with your identity or anonymously. Questions, comments, and any other so, or excuse me, and any other form of Zoom bombing will not be tolerated.
Closed captioning can be found at the toolbar at the bottom of your Zoom.
So now I would like to introduce you all Gregory Balam. He is the Financial Aid Specialist over at Financial Aid, who helps all our DREAMers with their California Dream Act applications.
Welcome, Greg.
Gregory Balam: Thank you Karla I appreciate it. So as Karla said, my name is Gregory Balam. I've been a Financial Aid Specialist here at Moorpark College for approximately six or seven years, somewhere around there now. It's been a while
and pretty close to when I started, I was asked to take over, be the liaison for DREAMers for the Financial Aid Office.
And so I've been helping DREAMers, since then, and a lot of things have changed from time to time, different types of financial aid, grants,
fee waivers, things have changed throughout time to allow DREAMers have a little bit more financial aid than what they did when I first started. So that's always been a good benefit for them and so go ahead and go to the next slide please.
So we're going to talk about a little bit is some of the California Dream Act eligibility. What makes you eligible for the California Dream Act, because there's been some time some ambiguity
to whether a student will qualify to apply for the California Dream Act and receive financial aid or sometimes whether they should do a FAFSA application. So we're going to go over those kind of things and we're also going to talk about
the application itself. We're going to highlight a couple things on the application.
And it doesn't say on here well, it might go with resources, but we're also going to talk about the types of financial aid, you can receive at Moorpark College,
and some of the challenges when assisting Dream Act students and also some campus resources as well as off campus resources that you may be eligible for. Next slide please.
Alright, so again we're going to start off talking about the California Dream Act application, and what makes you eligible to do the California Dream Act. Next slide please.
Okay. So really when we're referring to whether a student qualify for financial aid,
through the California Dream Act, they really need to consider whether they're eligible something called AB 540 which some of you may be familiar with that term AB 540. AB 540 is now composed of several different laws. As you can see down there, the AB 540, AB 130, AB 2000, SB 68.
Those basically what they do is as long as a student has at least three years of education, either at a California high school, California junior high, California elementary school,
an adult school now, and also a community college and they've graduated from a California high school, they can qualify to be considered something called AB 540.
That does basically two things. It gives them in state tuition costs so they won't be charged out of state tuition costs,
but it also allows them to apply for the California Dream Act application, which is state financial aid, it's important to mention that it's state financial aid,
because one of the things that DREAMers are restricted from receiving at this point is federal financial aid, and I'll kind of go more into what's considered state financial aid and what's considered federal financial aid, a little bit further. Next slide please.
Okay, same thing I kind of try to simplify this again, but this is a more of an expansion on what SB 68 is.
Again, basically SB 68 it allow- it was the expansion to include community colleges for your years of education,
adult School and also Department of Rehabilitation, and correction school. So there's a number of different things that were added to meet that three year requirement to be eligible for the in state tuition.
And again, if you are a DREAMer as well, I think the last bullets really important if you're a DREAMer, and you went to a high school, like you came to the US and you went to high school for only your senior year,
and you graduate from a California high school, this is a really important one because you may not be able to be considered AB 540 community college,
but once you have two years at community college and get an associate's degree that can also add on to that
eligibility to be considered AB 540 for in state tuition, so it'd be really important when you transfer as well so
even if you do not qualify for AB 540 at right, you know, at this current moment, you can still gain eligibility later on through this expansion of through the law of SB 68. Next slide please.
Cool, and again, this is basically kind of a simplified way of looking at it again, kind of going through what I've already went through which is again,
attendance at three years at any of the following high schools in California, that, or three plus years of earning high school credits with total of three years of total attendance at any of the following schools. So this kind of give you a better hopefully a simplified
visual of what you need in order to be eligible for that in state tuition costs. Next slide please.
And again, this is the other part of the requirement which is I say a high school diploma, but it also expands, it also actually goes further and includes a GED, an equivalency, high school equivalency exam,
associate's degree is also included in there now, again with the expansion of SB 68. So again, you also want to make sure that these are the things that you have in order to
get in state tuition. The last thing as well which is if you've already, you know, or if you're already a DREAMer, and you're already getting in state tuition is
that you probably are aware of, is you also have to fill out an AB 540 affidavit to qualify for that in state tuition, you do that with at least at our college Admissions and Records, and what this
what this affidavit really is, is it confirms that you have three years of qualifying education and you have a GED or high school diploma,
or a high school equivalency in order to qualify for AB 540 and once they have all that information they also need you to sign it, so that way it basically will it basically says that
at some point you will try to become a legal resident at a certain point, you don't have it doesn't have any follow through, or anything, necessarily, but it wants you to have that commitment. Next slide please.
Okay, so it's also important as well, this is basically just information for for everyone's knowledge,
but basically, there are certain things that will make you not qualified to do the California Dream Act, and one of those things is if you have, for the most part, any visa really.
I know one of the most common things I see is like a student visa, and if you have a student visa you unfortunately do not qualify under the California Dream Act. There is one exception. Next slide please.
And that is a U Visa. This is the only one, the only visa that makes you eligible to apply for the California Dream Act and receive financial aid.
The U Visa is specifically for eligible victims with non immigrants status due to temporarily remaining in the US, while assisting law enforcement. So basically, so
they're participating in an ongoing investigation. This student however does not file the affidavit because they're not going through AB 540 but they rather they're going through their U Visa. So that's an important thing to
to be aware of if you have a U Visa, or if you know anyone who may have a U Visa. Next slide please.
The other exception is TPS or Temporary Protective Status and that allows a person to live and work in the United States for a specified time period, but it doesn't necessarily lead to a green card.
If they receive TPS they may be eligible for the California Dream Act as well. Next slide please.
So here's an important distinction that I like to always make.
So there's DACA. California Dream Act application is specifically an application for financial aid. DACA is a Deferred Action Program
that is basically it's a law or an executive action that allows DREAMers to work in the United States legally and also have deportation deferred for them. So they basically are not a priority at all.
You do not need to be part of DACA in order to do the California Dream Act. One the most common misconceptions I see in Financial Aid is that if a student will believe that if they don't have DACA, they cannot do the California Dream Act, this is not the case. DACA and AB 540 are not
they are, they're mutually exclusive. So you can be an AB 540 students and not have DACA and that's fine, and you could also consequently although it's very unlikely due to the
terms of how DACA works, you can also potentially have DACA and not be eligible for the California Dream Act, but again, that's very unlikely because the, the terms of DACA, it basically specifies you have to be here before certain amount of time.
And so again, DACA is not required to qualify for non resident tuition, it is completely different than AB 540,
and DACA is not required to complete the California Dream Act application, again they're two separate things.
And DACA will not impact the ability for students to receive financial aid, to continue receiving financial aid later on. So if there's been a change and if they lose
they gain DACA later, they will still be eligible for the California Dream Act. The only time that there will be a change and what they are eligible for is if a student goes from a DREAMer
to a permanent resident which case then there, there would be a change, but I think we have a slide for that later. Next slide please.
Okay, so for Selective Service.
Go ahead and click it one more time just to get the whole page in there.
Okay, so for Selective Service, this is something that is a requirements received state financial aid for all males between 18 and 25 years old, they have to register for Selective Service, regardless of their citizenship status,
and so one of the, this can be one of the biggest obstacles for DREAMers, because if they have specifically a California Grant, which will go over later on,
a Cal Grant, they need to do Selective Service otherwise, they cannot receive that Cal Grant and since most DREAMers, do not have socials and they cannot use a DACA social here,
they will need to leave it blank and they have to actually mail the form in
and then they'll have to wait weeks for them to receive it and be processed, and then they will get a letter back saying, "Hey, we see that you have registered for Selective Service, here's your proof."
And so it's very important to follow up with the Financial Aid Office when you're applying for the California Dream Act because,
if you need to Selective Service you want do that as soon as possible to receive your Cal Grant, because otherwise, it could be delayed quite significantly. Next slide please.
And that's what the form looks like, so if you ever need to do it, this is what you get back,
once you send in your information, this is what you get back, and this is your confirmation that you've registered for Selective Service.
If you have to submit that to the Financial Aid Office just please note that there are a couple signature areas, you will need to sign it in order for it to be valid. Next slide please.
And then, okay.
So saying all that with Selective Service, there is one exception, as of right now to that and there was an executive order done by Governor Newsom,
and this waved the requirement for Selective Service for those that are eligible for Cal Grant for the 2019-2020 and the 2020-2021 academic years.
What that really pertains to at this moment is, if you have not, if you're eligible for Cal Grant and you have to be Selective Service for this year that we're in 2020-2021, you do not need to do Selective Service, that has been waived, you do not have to provide proof. However,
I still recommend that you do Selective Service, even if your requirement's been waiting for this day I would still recommend doing it because, again,
the process of having to mail it to Selective Service and then wait for confirmation is it can be
it can be long. And so, you know, definitely get your Cal Grant this year and don't worry about Selective Service, but also kind of worry about Selective Service and make sure you do it sooner rather than later, because eventually
unless the executive order's extended, you're going to need that for the next year, and we're basically apply for the next year. Next slide.
So now we're going to talk about the California Dream Act application, as of right now there are two applications that are available. The one you see right there that says 2020-2021 that is the current year that were in that includes fall 2020, spring 2021,
and summer 2021. There also, as of October 1, the new application became available for 2021-2022 and that is for starting fall 2021,
and so right now it is very important to apply for all those because the earlier the better, the earlier you're eligible for more awards. Next slide please.
Okay, so again, this is kind of information, when do you want to apply? Really, you want to apply right now, but ultimately before March 2.
And why should you do that? Well, I can tell you that for March 2 that is the entitlement period for Cal Grant,
and so if you want to, you know, give yourself the best chance of being eligible for Cal Grant you always want to do your Dream Act application before March 2 and you could do this every year, and again, there's a little bit of a summary there, but who can apply?
Undocumented Students, with or without DACA, TPS status, U Visa holders, but again, it's important to remember that and I'll go over later on is that you're ineligible for federal financial aid.
Again, in order to do the Dream Act you have to be eligible for AB 540 as well, and there is the website right there. It's dream. csac. ca. gov.
It's important to make sure that you're constantly keeping an eye on this and again, you do have to reapply
every year, so if you want to calendar yourself for every October 1 to renew the application, then you want to make sure you're doing that, and you don't you know you get it as soon as possible done. Next slide please.
Okay, this is what I just want to point out this really quickly, once you go to the Dream Act application, you're going to put financial information and then you're going to submit the application.
There are two things that you really have to be aware of, one is the California Dream Act ID. This has become more important in the Financial Aid Office as of late,
because if you need to turn in paperwork, which we now do all our paperwork online and you submit everything online,
it's going to ask you when you create account for a social security number. Since you do not have a social security number or it's a DACA social, that will not work. You're going to want to
use your California Dream Act ID in order to create the online account for financial aid and submit documents.
So that's one of the things I really want to emphasize is you have to be really aware of what your California Dream Act ID is for financial aid purposes now.
The other thing I also want to make sure to mention is
one of the most common things I see when a student submits a California Dream Act application is that they forget to provide the parent's signature, and so when it comes into our system in Financial Aid,
it comes, it looks, it comes in incomplete, and so that becomes a big issue and it can delay your financial aid further. Next slide please.
Okay, so now we're going to talk about the different types of financial aid, grants, and even loans, which would be for transfer. So go ahead and go to next slide please.
Alright, so again, bottom line is DREAMers are eligible for in state tuition. What does this include? Now, I kind of made it so that
it includes community college and also for transfer. So first I'm going to kind of focus on what the available grants are for
community college at this point. So we're going to start with the main ones, which is
The California College Promise grants, which was what was formerly called the BOG Fee Waiver and what this does,
is if you're eligible based on your Dream Act application it waves, the tuition costs. So if you do not have to pay for tuition
if you're eligible for the California College Promise Grant. Again, it was used to be called the BOG Waiver. So that's the most important one of the most important ones.
The other one is the Cal Grant and again the Cal Grant, you want to keep in mind that March 2 deadline.
You want to do before March 2. And so the Cal Grant is money that they actually give you for books, supplies,
anything that you need for it really to educational costs, you're going to use that Cal grant for and then as money that you do not have to pay back.
Now, one of the nice things about the Cal Grant is now it doesn't show on here, but it has now a supplemental grant called the Student Success Completion Grant,
and what that does is in addition to Cal Grant, it will provide you 649 extra per semester, if you are in full time 12 units.
It increases to 2000 a semester, if you take 15 units of a coursework or more,
and the reason why this happens is now the state of California is trying to incentivize students to graduate within the two year timeframe, because typically, in order to do so, you need to be in 15 semester typically,
and so that is there a way to incentivize you. So not only will you, if you're eligible for Cal Grant
receive the Cal Grant, but if you're in full time 12 units or even 15, you'll receive an additional grant on top of that, and again grants are
money you do not have to pay back it's basically free money.
So that's a really important thing to distinguish between as well. The other important thing is
also, if you're a DREAMer, and you're eligible for EOPS you can receive an additional book grant as well as their services with EOPS, which is
their own counselors, priority registration, things of that nature, and they also provide like laptop assistance programs.
So that is another award that can stack on top of all those awards.
As a right now becoming causal here at Moorpark College, we also have something called an AB 19 Grant, which is specifically for DREAMers, and there's a lot of things they use the words AB 19 so,
if you have questions, you can always contact our office, but there is a AB 19 Grant that we doing for DREAMers, that gives an additional up to $1,000 depending on enrollment status and again getting more free money
that you do not have to pay back. Now, the only thing I will caution with that specific grant is, it depends on funding.
A lot of times we're not really sure whether we're going to offer that until I get the go ahead later on that we have enough funding to give that out,
and so for that specific one I wouldn't say that you would want to rely on it but you definitely would want to ask about it to see if you're eligible for those things.
The other thing I also will mention that you can also do at the community college level is work study. Now work study,
there's basically two different types of work study at least at Moorpark College. There's the federal work study which is
money we received from Department of Education to allow students to work. DREAMers are not eligible for that specific type of work study.
They are eligible for a different type of work study, which is funding from the department. So if the department pays out of their own funding a DREAMer can do work study on campus.
The only caveat to that is you do need to have a social security number for employment purposes. So typically get that through DACA. If you do not have that you may not be able to do that work study.
The other thing as well is private scholarships are also available. There are different types of scholarship
that are offered either through our scholarship office or other external websites such as Immigrant Rising,
that you can also apply for, that they allow DREAMers to receive grants as well. And again, this is specifically all that I've talked about so far is specific to
what's going on at Moorpark College. So in general, community colleges. Once you transfer out, I'll just briefly mention because I'm not an expert on the financial aid at the four year universities,
you also could qualify for the UC University Grant or what's considered the blue and gold grant,
and you also if you go to a Cal State, you may be eligible for the State University Grant as well. So those are different programs that you also want to check with their financial aid office to see if you're eligible for. The other thing is you are become eligible for DREAMer loans.
There is some discussion right now about providing DREAMer loans at the community college level, but there hasn't been very many updates with DREAMer loans at the community college level.
As of right now they're only offered at the university level and typically DREAMer loans those you do have to pay back,
and they usually will I would follow up with a financial aid office to see what the terms are but they usually mirror that of subsidized loans which is no interest as long as you're in school and you haven't graduated or dropped below six units. Next slide please.
Karla: Greg, we have a question for you.
[Gregory]: Sure. [Karla]: Cool. A student is asking the additional Cal Grant for 15 units, is that only for students in community college or is that also for four year colleges?
Gregory: That's a very good question. So those as of right now are specific to community colleges only. So the universities, the UC's, the privates, the Cal States only offer that as of as of right now. [Karla]: Okay,
thank you.
Gregory: No worries. Now this is a really important update that happened a couple years back, that's why I left the the ears of 2019-2020 on there as well, but basically before for DREAMers, you had to go through the entitlement
periods in order to be
considered for Cal Grant, and that meant that you had to get a straight out of high school through the high school entitlement period,
or you would not be able to get it for your subsequent years until you transferred through the transfer entitlement period. This has actually changed recently and now DREAMers are eligible to be considered through the competitive cycles and kind of put it as basically as possible,
you should always apply every year before March 2 and you will be considered for Cal Grant before, again, that was not the case, not only that, but even if you,
I don't encourage it, but even if you're not eligible to the March 2 deadline, you can also be considered for the September 2 deadline. There's always a secondary deadline that FAFSA students had,
and now DREAMers are also potentially eligible for that September 2 deadline as well. However, again,
those are really competitive cycles, which means that it depends, they're going to score you, the California Commission's going to score you
based on your GPA and a number of other factors, and if they score high enough, and they have funding for you, then you potentially could get it but again it's competitive, funding will run out. So you ideally would always want to hit the March 2 deadline.
And again, Cal Grants has to components, I should have said this earlier, but again you have to have
do your Dream Act application before March 2, but you also need to have your GPA verified
by March 2 and this happens a couple different ways. If you're coming from high school, your high school does it automatically as long as it's a public high school, they will send it automatically the state of California for you to be considered.
If you are in the community college system and you'll have at least 16 transferable units, then Admissions and Records will automatically send your GPA
to the State of California to consider for Cal Grant.
Now that's how it should work. But I always recommend that students either follow up with Admissions and Records because Admissions and Records is actually the office that will send the GPA,
and verify that GPA, or you follow up with our office. Sometimes we'll also get a list that's provided by Admission and Records, saying, who's GPA was sent. So always double check it, because it just doesn't hurt to be sure. Next slide please.
Okay, this is something that's a really new that actually I don't have too much information on but I want to provide this information.
In one of the trainings that we had for California Student Aid Commission recently, they talked about something called the California DREAMer Service Incentive Grant, and this is a new grant that they're proposing to
basically give out in the
award year. So wouldn't be this year, it would be starting fall 2021,
And basically this is for students who also receive Cal Grant and completed their Dream Act application,
and if they do 100 hours or 150 hours per semester of community service or volunteer service they would get a Cal Grant B Service Incentive Grant of up to 3000 per year.
So again, that is more money on top of that. So if you're
I always have a Dream Act student saying like, "How can I get more financial aid?" Well in the future if you do community service you potentially could get more that way as well,
and so they're still trying to get, you know, organize the logistics of everything, how everything would be reported, how everything would be verified, but just make sure you keep that in mind and follow up on that, if you're interested in doing that. Again, as we get closer to the
follow up with the Financial Aid Office and double check on all those things. Next slide please.
Okay, I kind of went through this already, but just kind of a more affirm information.
DREAMer loans, right now again only available at CSU and UCs there's limited funding available, so you want to ask your institution that you're transferring to as soon as you know you want a DREAMer loan.
And each campus determines student eligibility and amounts, a student may borrow, but again, typically they mirror the federal loans. So if you have questions about that, I can give you that information as well.
As of right now, the maximum award that institution had was 4000 per year and the maximum lifetime amount that you can borrow would be 20,000, so they follow again very closely the subsidized loans. Next slide please.
Okay, I'm going to talk about one of the challenges I kind of referred to earlier. Next slide please.
Okay, cool, and this is a very common issue that we have in Financial Aid and it's about it pertains to whether students, you do a Dream Act application or a FAFSA.
Initially when DACA, the DACA program was established, the federal government actually recommended that they do a FAFSA application. This was incorrect to the State of California. The State of California always recommends regardless of whether you have DACA or not to do the Drea, Act application.
And again, because DACA recipients are not eligible for federal financial aid, there's not really a reason for them to do FAFSA, so there was some
misinformation initially that was given out, and so what I see sometimes is that some students will do the FAFSA application when they have DACA, but then
we have to go back and like, "No, you have to your Dream Act application," and potentially that could cause issues when you're trying to receive Cal Grant there's ways around those issues.
But ideally you want to make sure that if you're, if you have DACA, that you do Dream Act application. The other thing that I see is
sometimes, is that a DREAMer will either be applying for asylum, later on, they'll apply for asylum or they will apply for permanent residency,
and so what ends up happening is that if that happens in the middle of the award year, they need to change their application to a FAFSA that way,
and not only that, but the nice thing is that if for any reason, a DREAMer becomes eligible for FAFSA in the middle of the year, they will also
that point forward, they will receive federal financial aid, but that we can actually go retroactive to the beginning of the award year. So if you have any changes in your citizen status, whether you become a permanent resident, a US citizen,
an asylum, because asylum-seekers are also eligible for FAFSA, then you should contact the Financial Aid Office just to make sure that you one, can get as much financial use you can, but also make sure you have the right application on file as well.
And again, if for some reason you accidentally do FASFA and then you were supposed to do Dream Act, you also want to make sure that you contact our financial aid office here it says, Contact California Student Aid Commission,
but now they actually will send you our way, they'll refer you to us. We'll have you fill out a form and basically transfer your
the date of your FASFA to the Dream Act application, so you could be considered for Cal Grant. Hopefully that makes sense. I know it's a lot of technical stuff, but again, if you have questions, you're always more than welcome to contact our Financial Aid Office. Next slide please.
Okay, so these are the reasons why most students are not awarded. Again, one of the issues is that they do not complete the application,
even before the March 2 deadline. Again, there is a secondary deadline now, but you always want to try to do for March 2, because it increases your chances of the amount of financial aid you can get.
Again, as I mentioned earlier, you there may be a missing parent signature, because again you don't remember to click on that parent signature at the end of the application or you just never go back and do it, and so you want to make sure that your application is complete.
Missing or incomplete, or inaccurate income, or asset information, sometimes that ends up happening or when the most common things I see on the Dream Act that will cause it to be "incomplete or rejected"
is that they will put the amount that adjusted gross income matches the amount of taxes paid, which is impossible for you to
pay in the amount of taxes the same amount that you earn in income that's impossible, and so that is one of the most common issues that I see.
Again, not really relevant anymore to this award year, but for future award years Selective Service was not completed and they didn't, we weren't able to verify that information.
Another thing that happens is anytime a student submits a California Dream Act application, there's a potential for them to be selected for something called Verification,
and what that really is is that if you're selected for Verification, basically, that's when we ask for a copy of your tax information, a verification form, we ask you for additional paperwork to verify the information on your Dream Act application and award you financial aid.
So I kind of, I think I have another slide on that and next one that I will go over a little bit more thoroughly.
Not only that, but also a student accidentally does a FAFSA or they're not sure about what application to do. Next slide please.
Okay.
[Karla]: Greg? [Gregory]: Yes.
Karla: Have a question for you in the chat. So what if the student is a self supporting adult? And what if the parents refuse to participate?
Gregory: Okay, so the unfortunate thing about that is that also the State of California made it so that it mirrors exactly FAFSA, and what that means is, even if the student is self sufficient they will not be
considered independent unless they meet a couple different criteria or a few that they could means they have to be at least 24 years of age, generally,
married, have kids, have someone they support more than 50%,
those are the main ones, if they were in foster care, that's another one. If they're under legal guardianship, if they are emancipated minor that's another thing that potentially could happen.
Unfortunately, if a parent refuses to give information that does not constitute the ability for them to be independent. Now saying all that there is a specific
that pertains specifically to the dream California Dream Act application. There is one small I wouldn't call it a loophole because it's designed that way,
but if they are considered AB 540 or they get in state tuition, they can still do the California Community College Promise Grant,
which their terms of what makes a student independent, a little bit different. As long for that one, as long as they are
not claimed on their parents' taxes and they do not live with their parents, they will be considered independent for only the California Community College Promise Grant, which again,
that will take care of the tuition, so they will not have to pay for tuition. So there is that one little caveat that you know they have as well, potentially, they could get that financial aid.
But again, through that California Community College Promise Grant they could also get EOPS. So that kind of opens up a little bit. I would always say
if a student has that situation to refer them to us so that way we can make sure like we can ask them the necessary questions and see what their eligible for but also maximize the amount of financial aid considering what their situation is as well.
I hope that all makes sense.
There is another way as well. I should also mention, that they can receive Cal Grant, but that requires
a little bit more than their parents just not wanting to give them information. If a student is in a in a unusual circumstance where they're
a victim of abuse, neglect, anything like that, that they can verify with third party sources, then they could do something called a Dependency Override which will allow us to make them independent ourselves,
but again, that is a very particular situation, they need to talk to us and have a conversation with us and they will need to provide additional documentation as well.
I hope that answers the question.
And so, I'm sorry, going back to
Verification.
So approximately 20% of everyone who completes a Dream Act application will be selected for that process.
It's all random. There's not really anything that you can do. They just randomly pick a few and then
they require us to verify that information, again that's when we ask for taxes and things like that.
It says some institutions are very strict in the verification process and may ask for tax information from parents or additional income, in my experience, usually they become more strict when you go to the university level because they have a lot more institutional financial aid
that they have that they award, they have their own money that they give out, and so the as a consequence of that they are more strict in my experience than at community college. Next slide please.
Okay, so once a Dream Act is signed and successfully submitted, the application will be sent to all the colleges listed. For Moorpark College what that means is
in in more concrete terms, once it's submitt- a student submits the Dream Act application, generally, it takes a week before it comes into our system.
And so sometimes Dream Act students will will ask us, like, "Hey, I just made the Dream Act application. What am I eligible for?" I'm like, "Well, we can't tell yet until we receive it in our system." So that's an important thing to keep in mind.
And this is basically just some technical information which is the Dream Act is proprietary to California Student Aid Commission. So when there's an issue we contact the California Student Aid Commission to do that.
Again, students must update complete an updated or, you know, renew their California Dream Act application every year.
If there are any significant changes in income or major life changes, students should contact the Financial Aid Office and really what this refers to is, if the student
let's say they use the 2018 taxes and they their parents made I don't know let's say 80,000,
but now let's say due to Covid, now their parents are making like 20,000 a year. That's a significant change in income that we potentially could adjust their
that could affect their eligibility and so we may be able to do something to change that, as well. So they could be eligible for more as well considering their situations changed. Next slide please.
Alright, we're going to go over a couple of different resources that are coming up, and a couple of websites. So go ahead, next slide please.
Okay, so the first thing I would talk about is basically the Financial Aid is October 24 we are having Cash 4 College.
And so for Cash 4 College, this is an app where we can, this is a workshop where we can sit with each student and go through the application one on one
and answer any questions they may have for financial aid, and so I recommend any students go to this because, again, the sooner you can do the Dream Act application potentially the more you can receive financial aid so,
if you show by October 24 between 9:00 and 11:00 then that would be great, and the Zoom link is posted on the website as well, or if you have any questions about where you can find that Zoom link just contact us and we can provide that for you. Next slide please.
The other very useful website that I use a lot or I refer to a lot is Immigrant Rising and I just took a screenshot of some of the general information they have one of the most important things that I see
is that there's a resource binder they provide for staff members, students, faculty, and they have a list of
basically, the most part I think for financial aid is a list of
links to scholarships. And so they've updated that recently so they have a couple like they only have a few links, but they lead to databases of scholarships, where you can apply for as well because
I think one of the most untapped resources that DREAMers do not use are scholarships, because
they are very particular, they have their own criteria eligibility, they differ a little bit. So I encourage you to go to this website and check out all the different resources, they may have for you that you take advantage of as well. Next slide please.
And also one of the nice things now, and of course, thanks to Karla for this is we have
our DREAMers website for Moorpark College. I took the top of the page, a screenshot of the top of the page because you can see
the URL on the top, and so if you want to make a note of that so you can explore that website I encourage you to do so. There are different, a lot of different resources, updates,
for example, all the the events are happening right now for this undocumented week is listed on the website with links on how to register for each webinar and everything. So this is a really important websites kind of refer to as well. Next slide please.
Okay and so that's the end of the formal not sure how much time if, I don't know how much time we have Karla, tell me, but I'm more than open to answering any questions that anyone may have.
Karla: Yeah, so we're open for any questions that any students may have, feel free to drop them in the chat or in the Q&A.
In the meantime, Greg, can you recap again water the options for those students who do not have the support from their parents to provide the tax information?
Gregory: Yeah, absolutely. So again, they at that point they may not be
eligible through the California Dream Act, but again, that one exception to financial aid for those students is that they can do the California Community College Promise Grants,
and again, that used to be called the BOG Waiver, and so for that, if they are not claimed on their parents taxes,
and they do not live with their parents, they will be considered independent for that purpose only. And so again, that is what takes care of their tuition costs,
but even with that, as long as they're eligible for the California Community College Promise Grant, they could be potentially eligible for EOPS, so you can also add a grant in there as well doing it that way.
And then, I'm sorry. Additionally, if they have
a special circumstance where they're again a victim of abuse, neglect, anything to that nature, they can also contact us and let us know because potentially we can make them independent with some supporting documentation as well.
Karla: Got it. Thank you for that.
Gregory: Course.
Karla: So Greg and I are going to hang out here on till 12 p.m. so if you have any questions, just feel free to drop them in the chat.
Gregory: Absolutely.
Karla: A quick note in our website, we also feature a section for financial aid and we do mention, Greg. So if you want to get in contact with him his contact information is featured. Let me see the incoming question that we have right now.
Okay, so an attendee is asking, "I thought the promise grant was not available for undocumented students. So, what I am hearing is they can apply?"
Gregory: Yes, correct. Yes, absolutely. Now,
I guess now they're eligible for both promise. So the thing I don't like about the Promise is that there are a lot of things are called the Promise.
There's the California Community College Promise Grant that is what you see the BOG Waiver, but we also have the Moorpark Promise,
which is for students that are not eligible for financial aid that if they're in their first year, their first or second year, they can get their tuition paid for as long as they are full time.
I guess it doesn't really matter because either way DREAMers are eligible for both. So yes DREAMers are eligible for promise grants.
Karla: Okay.
So,
we have a comment from Dina here.
And it was in regards of the question about parents not being in the picture for students. So she's mentioning,
"This is an ongoing flaw in the FAFSA application process and I have mentored many students not able to get parents participation or there's an issue of his students having been disowned by parents did to life choices. It is a real current issue.
I am a mentor, is there...
a way to appeal the FAFSA Commission on this parent issue?"
Gregory: Yeah, so I'll answer this in a couple different ways.
So first of all, I'll talk about since you already mentioned FASFA. There is
a particular thing you can do with the FAFSA application. If a student isn't given information,
there is a way for us to give them a loan still, unsubsidized loan without parents cooperation, we can, we can do that, but that's specifically only with FASFA. DREAMers do not have that same luxury or I don't know if I want to call it luxury, but they don't have that same benefit,
since DREAMers on eligible at the community college level for loans. Now, when you talk about, like, if they're being disowned by parents due to lifestyle choices,
that potentially could lead to a Dependency Override because that is a special circumstance,
that we may be able to do something about.
In turn, and so the dependency override would be the most
realistic potential way to become independent,
and so again you I would just tell those students that have those particular situations where they're disowned or abandoned
to contact our office because we potentially could do something about that in those particular situations. In terms of this parents that just don't want give them information, because I see that a lot, particularly with step parents, honestly,
there is no way to appeal that, since that is written in the Department of Education's
the Higher Education law, and so the only way to change that particular would be a legislative change.
But again, I wouldn't say that if you have a student in that situation, I always would recommend, even if they're not eligible for that, I would always recommend that you guys refer them to the Financial Aid Office because
the only ones that will know for sure whether they're going to be eligible for not for a Dependency Override would be us because we handle those, and so again refer to them to us.
Karla: Thank you Greg.
Another...
Dina's just thanking you for this helpful information. We definitely need legislative change but that would be so helpful.
Gregory: Yeah, no, I understand, because I have seen too where students are self sufficient and they have no support by their parents, but we unfortunately unless they have a special circumstance.
Karla: Right,
and for the staff who is part of the group,
Greg and I have connected about certain circumstances before too and talked about them and being able to help our students. So know that there is support available.
Gregory: Absolutely. Like I said, even if you don't think they based on what I told you that they may qualify for that, always refer them to us,
we can make sure.
Karla: Yeah.
Alright everyone, so this concludes our webinar today and thank you Greg for joining us.
We'll see you all at 2 p.m. for our Getting Involved workshop. Bye Bye everyone.