CSUN University News Clippings

Cal State students speak up over proposed slashes to financial aid

(January 29, 2009)

By Gale Holland

Nathonas Duro, 21, rises Mondays at 6 a.m., takes her brother to school and is at her campus office job by 8 a.m. at Cal State San Bernardino, where she is a full-time student.

About 11 a.m., the sociology major sprints to a second job, breaking off at 3 p.m for school club meetings. Then it’s home to help her grandmother, who is raising Duro’s seven brothers and sisters, get the children their dinner, see that their homework is done and pop them into bed.

Finally, Duro can start her own homework. On weekends, she said, there’s a third job with the U.S. Forest Service.

Duro has to hold all three jobs in order to make it at Cal State, she told the university system’s Board of Trustees at its meeting Wednesday in Long Beach.

“I get financial aid, and at the beginning of a quarter, I begin to worry if I will be able to buy my parking permit or books for my classes,” said Duro, who recently learned she would not be receiving a grant she had expected from her tribe, the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuillas. “I live paycheck to paycheck, and it is difficult to split my time between three jobs, school and my family.”

Duro’s immediate aim in appearing before the trustees was to protest Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed cuts to Cal Grants, the state’s main financial aid program for college students, as well as delays in releasing the grants for spring sessions. She also criticized a 10% hike in student fees that is expected next year for the 23-campus, 450,000-student university system.

Lauren Romero, 19, a Cal State Dominguez Hills student who also addressed the board, said funding shortfalls are deeply affecting her campus. Departments have been merged, students’ work-study job hours cut, classes dropped and construction on a new library suspended, she said.

Romero, who is partially blind, hopes to pursue a career in special education, but is waiting to hear if a sign language class she needs will be canceled this spring. Because of the Cal Grant delay, she had to ask her mom, a single mother supporting two other children on a part-time secretary’s salary, for money for food. Although classes have started, she hasn’t bought a single book, Romero said.

“I can’t explain how difficult it is for students,” Romero said outside the meeting. A Chicano studies major, Romero said she is taking five classes because “I want to graduate as soon as possible. There’s a lot of stress for my mom and a lot of stress for me.”

Jeffrey L. Bleich, chairman of the Cal State board, said he sympathized with the students’ plight.

“I wish there were a magic wand,” Bleich said after the students had spoken. He said the latest budget proposal gives the Cal State system $100 million less than it received last year.

“The Legislature is hopping from crisis to crisis without a clear set of values,” he said. “If Californians makes it clear they are looking for leaders to invest in California, we’ll have more success with the leadership.”

Romero said the university board had the political power to fight the cuts.

“They’re the ones who are supposed to be advocating for us, and my hope and prayer is they do,” she said.

Publication: Los Angeles Times