Student financial aid: Cal Grant program.

(1) Existing law, the Cal Grant Program, establishes the Cal Grant A Entitlement Awards, the Cal Grant B Entitlement Awards, the California Community College Transfer Cal Grant Entitlement Awards, the Competitive Cal Grant A and B Awards, the Cal Grant C Awards, and the Cal Grant T Awards under the administration of the Student Aid Commission, and establishes eligibility requirements for awards under these programs for participating students attending qualifying institutions. This bill would require that, in a state of emergency, as defined, resulting from the COVID-19 public health crisis, specified Cal Grant Program eligibility requirements related to time limits for award eligibility and to the age of an award recipient would not apply. This bill would make this provision inoperative on July 1, 2023, and would repeal it as of January 1, 2024. (2) Existing law requires applicants for Cal Grant A Entitlement Awards and Cal Grant B Entitlement Awards to submit complete financial aid applications in the academic year of high school graduation or equivalent for the immediately following award year. Existing law also requires applicants for Cal Grant A Entitlement Awards and Cal Grant B Entitlement Awards to submit complete financial aid applications for the 2nd award year in the award year immediately following high school graduation or equivalent. This bill would instead, for applications made in the 2021–22 and 2022–23 academic years only, authorize applicants for these awards to submit complete financial aid applications for the first award year in the academic year immediately following their high school graduation or equivalent for the immediately following award year, and to submit complete financial aid applications for the 2nd award year in the 2nd academic year after high school graduation or its equivalent. (3) Existing law prohibits persons who will be 28 years of age or older by December 31 of an award year from receiving California Community College Transfer Cal Grant Entitlement Awards. For applications submitted in the 2021–22 and 2022–23 academic years only, this bill would provide that prohibition would instead apply to students who will not be 29 years of age or older by December 31 of the award year. (4) Under existing law, with an exception applicable only to students who attended a California community college in the 2011–12 academic year, a recipient of a California Community College Transfer Cal Grant Entitlement Award is required to have attended a California community college in the academic year immediately preceding the academic year for which the award will be used. This bill would authorize a student otherwise eligible to receive a California Community College Transfer Cal Grant Entitlement Award who attended a California community college in the 2019–20 academic year to use the award for the 2021–22 and 2022–23 academic years. (5) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.