California college students who feel their financial aid package falls short of covering their actual expenses will soon have a clearer path to ask for more help, thanks to a new state law that takes effect in the fall of 2027.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2251 in September, requiring colleges and universities across the state to spell out, in plain language, how students can request additional financial aid if their awarded amount doesn’t match their real costs. The law, authored by Assemblymembers Celeste Rodriguez of the San Fernando Valley and Marc Berman of Menlo Park, also forces schools to disclose exactly how they calculate the cost of attendance figures used to determine aid packages.
Colleges have long been required to publish cost estimates covering tuition, housing, food, transportation and other expenses. But advocates say many students have no idea what to do when their actual bills exceed those estimates — and the new law aims to close that information gap.
“California has a really strong record of looking at new ways to improve college affordability, and AB 2251 is yet another example,” said Laura Szabo-Kubitz, senior policy advisor at The Institute of College Access and Success, a group that pushes for more affordable higher education. “It’s a step toward other advocacy efforts to bridge the affordability gap.”
A process many students never knew existed
Junely Merwin, now a consultant with The Foster Youth Pre-College Collective, knows firsthand how confusing the system can be. A former foster youth and young mother, Merwin received a full-ride scholarship to Cal State Fullerton in 2015 — but it wasn’t enough once childcare costs piled up.
“My money really went down the drain to childcare and just how expensive it was,” Merwin said. “Even with the full-ride scholarship, it was not enough.”
When she went looking for a way to revise her cost of attendance, the school’s website offered little guidance, and reaching the financial aid office meant being bounced between staff members. She eventually succeeded in getting her cost of attendance adjusted to reflect her childcare expenses, which allowed her to accept more scholarship money — but the process was far from simple.
That experience isn’t unusual. According to 2024 research from John Burton Advocates for Youth, the group that sponsored AB 2251, more than half of California’s colleges and universities use cost estimates that fall short of what students actually spend — in some cases underestimating real costs by more than $10,000.
That gap matters because students can’t receive financial aid beyond what their school calculates as the total cost of attendance. When real expenses exceed that number, students often end up working more hours or cutting back on coursework just to make ends meet, according to the Institute for College Access and Success. Appealing for a cost of attendance adjustment is technically an option — but many students never learn it exists.
“That is why I see AB 2251 as both a transparency and student access issue, because it is not enough to simply have a policy in place,” Merwin said. “Information needs to be communicated clearly, consistently, in a way that students can actually understand and use.”
Clearer rules on how to ask for more
A March report from John Burton Advocates for Youth found that nearly half of California colleges fail to properly explain how students can seek adjustments to their aid. The stakes are especially high for low-income students and former foster youth, who frequently already receive the maximum aid available yet still fall short of covering real costs, said Jessica Petrass, the organization’s director of education. Without clear guidance, these students often leave additional aid on the table simply because they don’t know how to ask for it.
A separate survey of campus staff who support foster youth across California’s three public university systems found that most consider the adjustment process difficult to navigate, with websites that are vague or hard to follow.
Under the new law, schools will be required to post detailed, easy-to-find instructions explaining how to request an adjustment, how long the process typically takes, and who students should contact — all on the same webpage where cost of attendance figures are listed.
Jackie Cordero, a first-generation student at UC Santa Cruz, is currently navigating that very process. She chose the campus in part because of its generous aid offer, but when her father was injured and lost his ability to work, she suddenly needed more help covering expenses that weren’t included in her original package.
Cordero found out about the adjustment option mostly through her own research and by reaching out directly to the financial aid office. Even then, the process has been a challenge — she said the school asked for documentation, such as formal records of her father’s job loss and her mother’s income, that doesn’t exist in the way the school expects.
“There should probably be a little bit more help towards people who want to do a cost of attendance (adjustment),” Cordero said. “I still am a little confused about the process, and approaching (the financial aid office) can be a little difficult.”
While federal law doesn’t require students to submit documentation for these adjustments, most colleges ask for it anyway before approving additional aid.
Little transparency on how costs are calculated
Beyond the adjustment process itself, researchers found that 83% of California’s public college campuses don’t break down how they arrive at their total cost estimates — failing to show, for instance, how much of the figure is based on housing versus food or transportation. That makes it harder for students to know whether their own expenses are running higher than what the school assumes.
“At the end of the day, these budgets are an estimate… You’re doing your best guess to get the best average to represent every student’s unique circumstance,” Petrass said.
Few schools explain where their estimates come from in the first place. Only 17% of University of California campuses, 26% of Cal State campuses and 22% of community colleges disclose their data sources, according to John Burton Advocates for Youth. Each system uses a different methodology — UC relies on a survey conducted by the Office of the President, while Cal State and community college estimates draw from a mix of sources, including U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data and survey figures from the California Student Aid Commission.
What the law won’t fix
AB 2251 establishes new transparency standards, but it doesn’t come with new financial aid dollars, and it doesn’t guarantee that cost of attendance adjustment requests will be approved.
The California Student Aid Commission projects the state could spend an additional $805,000 to $2.3 million on Cal Grant awards as a result of adjustment requests that likely wouldn’t have been filed otherwise — based on an expected 3% to 5% increase in approved adjustments each year.
Even when students succeed in getting more aid approved, many campus financial aid offices note that the additional money often comes in the form of loans rather than grants. And the law doesn’t simplify the adjustment process itself or change how colleges calculate their cost estimates in the first place.
“I think there are still areas in which California could continue to change policy to better strengthen this process,” Petrass said. “I think there’s opportunities to look at reducing documentation requirements for students as well to, again, just make it a more seamless process that aligns with the minimum federal requirements.”
Original source: CalMatters
