For Lucas Sanchez, a fourth-year UC Santa Cruz student, university is a place where he is able to access pathways to opportunity. 

“I wanted to have a real enhanced experience and try everything that is possible for me, and for me, that looked like pursuing two different pathways,” Sanchez said. 

Sanchez majors in film and minors in literature. He found out several weeks ago that he was no longer eligible for financial aid because of his proposed academic pathway. 

For so long, he has worked toward being able to walk across the stage with the rest of his peers — diploma in hand. 

Now, that dream is at risk. 

“To find out through my friends, not even the financial aid office itself, that I will not be financed for my education in the next quarter was unnerving,” Sanchez continued. “I wouldn’t have even been in this situation if I was just told earlier that this was the case.”

Many students with multiple concentrations, either majors or minors, are unaware that their financial aid can be reduced or entirely revoked if they complete one before another. 

Since the Financial Aid and Scholarship Office (FASO) often informs students of their aid status as it is decided, they may not be aware that their funding will be revoked until the quarter has already begun, making it difficult for them to swap courses that will allow them to maintain financial aid eligibility. 

When asked about when FASO decides to inform students about their aid, Lorena Lara Rodriguez, executive director of FASO, confirmed in an email that grade deadlines may impede timely notification.

“Academic progress is reviewed at the end of each quarter before financial aid is released for the next term, and students are notified as soon as the review is complete,” Rodriguez noted. “Because these reviews rely on the submission aid application, finalized grades and enrollment information, notifications may occasionally come after a new quarter has begun.” 

Sanchez, who was informed once the quarter had started, commented on the hurdles he faced. 

“I contacted many different offices, all of which told me very conflicting answers … I’m already stressed out over a handful of other things, this just added much more unnecessary drama to all of it,” he said. 

The FASO website defines an appropriate amount of time to finish an undergraduate degree as 180 credits, or 12 standard quarters, under the Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) Policy. SAP determines a student’s aid eligibility, and requires students to receive permission from a student’s affiliate college to exceed either 225 credits or 13 quarters. Additional requirements include maintaining a cumulative 2.0 GPA and a 12 credit per quarter minimum. 

However, if a student’s general education (GE) and major requirements are complete, they are no longer eligible to receive financial aid after the minimum 180 credits. Status of an additional major or minor isn’t taken into consideration. 

Put simply: quarters and credits aren’t the only method FASO utilizes to determine what constitutes an excess amount of time spent funding a student. 

Rodriquez stated that once a student completes their first bachelor’s degree, they are only eligible for student loans, rather than “gift aid,” such as the Middle Class Scholarship and Federal Pell Grants. She emphasized that aid is determined based on SAP guidelines alone. 

“Because federal financial aid regulations measure progress based on total attempted credits, and not the number of majors, students with double majors may reach the maximum time frame for gift financial aid sooner,” Rodriquez said.

Sarah Shane-Vasquez, the assistant director for college advising at Porter and Kresge Colleges, expressed that there is no definite answer when it comes to a student’s receival of financial aid after the minimum credit requirement has been reached. 

“If the GEs are done, the major’s done, they have 180 credits and they could graduate … Sometimes appeals aren’t approved, meaning they don’t get any more financial aid. Sometimes they are approved. It depends on a lot of factors,” she said. 

From office to office, or even counselor to counselor, knowledge of financial aid varies, especially outside of FASO itself. Consequently, FASO leaves many students feeling more confused than when they first set out for answers. 

Above all, students with multiple concentrations express alarm on the lack of available information surrounding financial aid and its applicability to their degree plans. 

“If you know, you know, and if you don’t, well, you have to pay out of pocket,” said fourth-year politics and legal studies double major Alyssa Obregón. “I want a clear-cut answer in writing.” 

Jackson Gamble, a second-year legal studies and feminist studies double major, affirmed a campus-wide desire for accessible, clear communication from the financial aid office. As a student who is heavily assisted by financial aid, Gamble’s education will be jeopardized if his aid is cut by 25 percent. 

“It’s hard to communicate with the financial aid office because it always feels like you’re doing something wrong,” Gamble said. “But that’s just because they don’t give you a lot of clear information.

Due to difficulties in both securing necessary classes for a single major alongside constantly changing requirements by major departments, graduation can easily become more than a minimum-credit endeavor. For the nearly two-thirds of UCSC students receiving financial aid, this can be an impossibility. 

“I think the counselors and financial aid [should be] collaborating with each other more,” Obregón said.

“We need to spread this information out and let these freshmen, sophomores, and juniors know. If we don’t tell them, they’re not gonna know. And [then] their senior year, winter quarter, they’re freaking out because they won’t receive financial aid. No one would have told them,” she continued.

Reality Hits: Paulina’s Story 

Editor’s Note: One of City on a Hill Press’ reporters, Paulina Garcia, has been impacted by the conflicting answers from the university. Although her story is unique, her uncertainty is shared among many. Here is her story:

I always dreamt of the moment I would cross the stage with my friends, shake some hands, and show my parents two degrees and a certificate as a testimony to all of their sacrifices. 

Last week that was a reality, but today I am not so sure. 

Double-majoring in politics and feminist studies, while working toward a certificate in the Visualizing Abolition Studies program, means I have to put in extra effort to stay on top of my studies. As a financial aid recipient, it also means working as many hours as I can, and taking out loans to ensure my success.

It was a Monday when I heard a rumor in conversation with friends that I would not receive financial aid simply because I was double majoring. I thought it was a lie. Surely the financial aid office — or at the very least my advisors -– would have alerted me about the risk. 

In four days, I made and took five phone calls, experienced three mental breakdowns, sat through two advising appointments, and sent and received too many emails. This is what my week consisted of after financial aid confirmed that if I finished all of the requirements for one of my majors before my final quarter, I would not continue to receive financial aid afterward.

My world came crashing down, knowing that all of the work I had accomplished in the last four years would leave me with one less degree and twice the amount of loans I thought I needed to get there. 

While dealing with this, it became clear that every professor and advisor I spoke to was in the dark about this too. Why aren’t all university advisors equipped with proper information for low-income students? Why doesn’t the financial aid office make this clear?

In the end, I was left with the difficult choice of having to drop a class and take it next quarter, so that I would still be eligible for financial aid. I did this so that I can receive both of my degrees that I worked so hard for. Both of my degrees that my parents deserve, that I deserve.

While I am grateful to have resolved the problem before the end of the week, just before I could drop a class without consequence or join a class at all, I still wonder about all of the students, ones that aren’t aware of this problem and ones that would have been saved if only they knew.