State lawmakers Wednesday demanded that the University of California system make more space for California residents — particularly at its most competitive campuses — even if it means charging higher tuition to those who come from out of state.
The number of non-resident students has declined at most UC campuses, ticking down from 17.7% to 16.3% systemwide over the past two years. Increasing pressure from the Legislature led the state to create a plan in the Budget Act of 2021 to increase the enrollment of Californians in the UC system over five years. The system has enrolled more in-state residents — but not enough to meet targets set by the state.
Assemblymember David Alvarez, D-San Diego, noted that most UC campuses reject more than half of their applicants, including many highly qualified California residents.
“This is frustrating for a lot of Californians,” Alvarez said during an Assembly budget hearing addressing college enrollment in the state.
Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, shared a story from a constituent who said she graduated with a 4.67 GPA, took 12 AP courses and was a varsity captain. She told him she applied as a political science major at four competitive UC campuses and was rejected from all, only to enroll at an out-of-state school.
“What would you tell this student about why she can’t attend the UC campus of her dreams?” Muratsuchi said.
A report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) called it “frustrating” that during a time of “tremendous demand,” the UC system fell nearly 1,400 full-time equivalent students short of its target to enroll more in-state students this year, as set by the 2023-24 Budget Act.
Assembly members said they also have concerns about nonresidents increasingly edging out California residents at a few CSU campuses. Nonresidents made up 17% of enrollment at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and 14.6% at San Diego State in 2022-23.
The LAO report notes that community college enrollment has begun to rebound after a precipitous decline during the pandemic. But its decline has created a domino effect by reducing the number of students transferring to CSU. Enrollment at the University of California has been growing, but it has not kept pace with student interest, as indicated by the rapidly rising number of applications. Unique applications to the UC system increased by 30% from 2013 to 2022.
Looking to the future, the systems — especially the community colleges and CSU — face continuing challenges attracting enough students. The report also noted that the numbers of traditional college age students are expected to decline in the coming years, just as they have in California’s K-12 school system.
Muratsuchi asked whether it might be time to rethink the way funds are allocated, not just between campuses but also between UC and CSU campuses. He pointed to the increased demand at UC campuses and declining interest at many CSU campuses.
The UC system does plan to address demand from California residents in the long term by adding between 23,000 and 33,000 full-time equivalent students by 2030. UC Merced and UC Riverside would account for 30% to 35% of that growth, while UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego would account for half or more of that growth. The UC system contends that this plan would rely on state funding to pay for an increase in California residents.
Seija Virtanen, associate director of state budget relations for the University of California Office of the President, said the UC system became more reliant on nonresident students to backfill massive budget cuts during the Great Recession of 2008. Each nonresident student pays nearly three times the tuition paid by resident students.
For 2024-25, Californians will pay $14,436 for undergraduate tuition, while nonresidents will pay $48,636.
“If we were to remove those funds, it would be catastrophic for our campuses,” Virtanen said.
Currently, the state is providing the UC system with an additional $31 million each year to support more California residents attending UC campuses, supplanting the funds that nonresidents bring in. Over the last two years, UC has enrolled over 2,600 fewer nonresidents. It has also enrolled nearly 5,900 additional in-state residents, but that is nearly 1,400 students short of the state target.
Alvarez proposed raising tuition for nonresidents to cover this $31 million in annual funds from the state. Using back-of-the-napkin math, Alvarez noted that passing along $31 million in tuition to 20,000 nonresident students would increase their tuition by about $1,500 each year. There are an estimated 36,630 nonresident students in the UC system. Alvarez suggested a follow-up hearing to discuss raising nonresident tuition.
During public comment, UC alumni-regent Keith Ellis agreed that it would be “worthy” to give the plan to raise nonresident tuition serious consideration.
CSU, where most campuses have seen enrollment drop, has room in its budget to add 24,000 full-time students, according to the LAO report. Only four of the 23 campuses — Fullerton, Long Beach, San Diego and San Luis Obispo — have increased their enrollment since fall 2019.
Seven campuses are enrolling at least 20% fewer students than four years ago, including campuses in Sonoma, the Channel Islands, the East Bay, Chico, Humboldt, Bakersfield and San Francisco.
Nathan Evans, deputy vice chancellor for academic and student affairs at CSU, said there is a plan to reallocate resources from campuses that have seen a sustained drop in enrollment to those where there is more demand. He said this reallocation needs to be done over several years.
“We’re not going to pull the rug out from any institution,” he said.
Evans noted that demographic changes in rural areas in Northern California and the Bay Area mean enrollment is not likely to rebound. The number of families with college-age students has been declining in these areas.
Evans said the CSU system is also working on increasing enrollment through partnerships with K-12 districts, marketing and attempting to reengage students who may have stopped out.
Despite the fanfare surrounding its launch in August 2022, the California Kids Investment and Development Savings program (CalKIDS), a state initiative to help children from low income families save money for college or a career, has been underutilized as eligible families lack awareness about its existence.
According to a March 6 announcement from CalKIDS, 300,000 students and families — a fraction of the 3.6 million eligible across the state — have accessed the state-funded account.
That translates to about 8.3% of eligible students statewide with similar low percentages locally, which Devon Gray, president of the advocacy organization End Poverty in California (EPIC), said illustrates the gap between a program run by the state and local implementation.
CalKIDS is meant to help families save for college or career training after high school by creating a savings account and depositing between $500 and $1,500 for eligible low-income students in the public school system. The program was created to help students, especially those from underserved communities, gain access to higher education.
While pleased with the state’s investment of nearly $2 billion for the program, Gray said successful implementation of CalKIDS is key.
Though supported by the governor, the program doesn’t have enough staff to consistently spread awareness across the large, diverse state, said Joe DeAnda, communications director with the California State Treasurer’s Office, which oversees the CalKIDS program and its outreach efforts. He cites a lack of resources, also an explanation for school districts that are having trouble informing families about the program.
Consequently, families across the state are confused, uninformed or unaware of CalKIDS and face challenges in even claiming the accounts once aware, EPIC leaders say.
The state’s low percentage of claimed accounts may seem indicative of poor program adoption, DeAnda said, but CalKIDS credits its ongoing outreach and collaboration to raise awareness of the program among schools, community-based organizations and government agencies as the reason for the “major milestone” of hundreds of thousands claiming their accounts so far.
Fresno Unified, one of the state’s largest school districts, hopes to reach a milestone of its own.
The school board voted on March 6 to create a districtwide campaign to raise awareness about the CalKIDS accounts that are available to most of its students — a move that districts statewide can emulate, advocates say.
In Fresno Unified, only 6.64% of eligible students have claimed their accounts — partly because the district has not publicized the program as it can and should, Andy Levine, a member of the district’s board of trustees, said during the board meeting.
Levine proposed a resolution requiring the district to make a systemwide commitment to increase student awareness and access to the accounts.
He cited studies indicating that having as little as $500 in a college savings account makes a student three times more likely to enroll in college and four times more likely to graduate than a student without savings.
“I believe (it) is critically important to our city overall, with tens of millions of dollars collectively waiting for our students to utilize,” Levine told EdSource.
Program gives $500 to eligible low-income students
In this file photo, Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at Ruby Bridges Elementary School in Alameda in March 2021. At the time, Newsom was still proposing the college savings accounts for all low-income students in California.Credit: Andrew Reed/EdSource
Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022 invested about $1.9 billion in the accounts; Fresno Unified students are eligible for about $30 million.
According to program details, low-income public school students are awarded $500 in a CalKIDS account if they were in grades 1-12 during the 2021-22 school year, were enrolled in first grade during the 2022-23 school year or will be in first grade in subsequent school years.
An additional $500 is deposited for students identified as foster youth and another $500 for students classified as homeless.
Children born in California after June 2023, regardless of their parents’ income, are granted $100. Those born in the state between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023, were awarded $25 before the seed deposit increased to $100. Parents who link the CalKIDS account to a ScholarShare 529 college savings account are eligible for an additional $50 deposit for their newborns.
The California Department of Education determines eligibility based on students identified as low income under the state’s Local Control Funding Formula, and the California Department of Public Health provides information on newborns.
State outreach does not address all the challenges
During the program’s initial rollout, Newsom described the initiative as California “telling our students that we believe they’re college material.”
“Not only do we believe it,” Newsom said at the time, “we’ll invest in them directly.”
Since then, Newsom and his office have regularly highlighted the program, spokesperson Izzy Gardon said. The governor’s backing garnered a lot of attention for the program in its first year, DeAnda said. Most Fresno County students who have claimed the accounts did so in the first year. Across the 33 school districts in Fresno County, 6,058 students claimed the account in the 2021-22 school year when the program launched; last school year, 404 registered the account, based on state data provided to EPIC.
Millions of dollars have been allocated to ensure families take advantage of the program.
According to the 2022-23 state budget, enacted in June 2022, the state increased its one-time general funding by $5 million for local program outreach and coordination with CalKIDS as well as another $5 million in ongoing funding for financial literacy outreach to educate families about the long-term benefits of a savings account with CalKIDS.
Besides outreach and collaboration with schools and organizations, the multimillion-dollar outreach efforts include marketing the program through partnerships, mailers, webinars, advertisements, social media and outdoor signage. With the state’s budget allocation, the program is also in the process of launching a $7.5 million media campaign to supplement current outreach.
Informing newborn parents looks slightly different
The mailers are one-time notification letters to inform students about the CalKIDS account and how to access it, according to the state treasurer’s office. Between November 2022 and June 2023, the program sent letters to over 3.3 million students. In January, the program sent notification letters for nearly 270,000 first graders who became eligible after last school year.
Every month, the program sends notification letters to newborn parents. Nearly 4% of more than 536,000 newborns eligible for CalKIDS had claimed the accounts, as of Dec. 31, according to CalKIDS data. As of March 1, the program had sent more than 634,000 letters to newborn parents since the program began, according to the treasurer’s office.
In addition to the mailers, the program has sent emails to over 316,000 parents to notify them of their newborn’s CalKIDS account. The California Department of Public Health, which provides information on newborns, sends the program email addresses of parents who provide the contact information during the birth registration process.
CalKIDS does not have access to student or parent email addresses from the education department.
Gray, the president of EPIC, said many in low income communities ignore the mailers because they don’t trust the communication or question its credibility, even if it has an official letterhead.
Advocates told EdSource that the success of other state outreach, such as webinars, depends on families being aware, and awareness — or a lack, thereof — is the No. 1 challenge related to CalKIDS account access. Other issues include the state’s large population as well as the workload of state officials who are tasked with promoting and offering various programs, not just CalKIDS.
DeAnda said it’s challenging for the small CalKIDS team, a group of about four people, to reach millions of families spread across the different rural and urban communities in California.
And even though CalKIDS has asked districts to promote the program as well, especially for students who will soon graduate, some districts also struggle with having enough resources to do their own outreach beyond what the state has done, Gray said. The program, according to the state treasurer’s office, offers an online toolkit for schools and districts to download and use fliers or posters, content for emails or social media and videos for CalKIDS outreach.
If families are not exposed to or participating in state or local outreach, they won’t know or learn about the program.
According to Gray, during EPIC’s listening tours across the state, he often asked families and community leaders about CalKIDS.
“And, usually, it’s blank stares,” he said.
Widespread confusion
In places such as San Francisco and Oakland, there is confusion about CalKIDS because the communities have local college savings account programs of their own.
Of over 33,000 eligible students in San Francisco County, just over 1,600 students, or 5%, have claimed the CalKIDS accounts. In Alameda County, where Oakland is located, more than 100,000 students are eligible, but just over 8,000, or 8%, have claimed their accounts.
Even when families are aware, claiming the account has proven difficult, said Jasmine Dellafosse, the director of organizing and community engagement with EPIC.
The seed deposits into the savings accounts are automatic, but families must claim the accounts by registering online — a step that less than 4,200 eligible Fresno Unified students had taken as of last school year.
To check student eligibility and register the account, families must enter students’ Statewide Student Identifier (SSID), a 10-digit number that appears on student transcripts, the CalKIDS website said.
Dellafosse said many Fresno Unified families don’t know where to find the ID numbers, and there’s often no straightforward answer on how to obtain them. The CalKIDS website instructs families to contact their child’s school or school district if they’re unsure of how to locate the number.
Board member Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas, at the March 6 board meeting, noted the difficulty she had in finding the SSID number for her child. She contacted the CalKIDS program, which referred her to the state mailer she said she never received.
For a board member who works in the district and has access to resources to struggle to identify the number, Dellafosse said, shows the barrier families have and will experience.
“We’re not just seeing that happening in Fresno,” she said, “we’re seeing that happening everywhere.”
With the school board’s resolution, Rosas said the district has an opportunity to help its families participate in the program and a chance to work with the state to make the process easier.
Fresno Unified leads state in effort to raise awareness
More than 60,000 of the district’s 70,000 plus students could qualify for $500, while more than 1,000 students experiencing homelessness or living in foster care qualify for up to $1,000 more, according to the board resolution proposed by Levine.
Going Deeper
EPIC leaders want other districts to make systemwide commitments for increased awareness of and access to the CalKIDS accounts.
“We can’t just stop at Fresno,” Dellafosse said.
As California is a large, diverse state, the outreach strategies that work in one region may not work in another. Still, advocates say there are ways to address the barriers impacting CalKIDS account access, such as:
Providing CalKIDS welcome kits with the SSID numbers.
Rewriting informational materials to a third-grade reading level so more families understand the content.
Having local leaders educate families.
Advocating for multilingual outreach at the state level.
And bolstering communication between districts and the state.
“You have to know the money is waiting for you,” he said.
According to the resolution, which includes the goal of increasing student account access from less than 7% to at least 25%, there is a “clear need for intentional district outreach, education and support.”
By June, Fresno Unified will create a CalKIDS engagement plan to outline strategies for account registration and data collection for all eligible students and set goals to ensure graduating students use their funds for post-secondary plans.
Levine said that the district’s plan can be a model for how school districts across the state can engage and educate families about the CalKIDS program.
Based on the resolution, the district’s commitment to making families aware of the program can increase access to funding, improve students’ chances of attending and graduating from college, and improve current statistics showing that less than 25% of Fresno County residents over 25 have a bachelor’s degree.
“As someone who comes from a very disadvantaged family, I know the difference that some dollars in a savings account can really make,” board member Veva Islas said.
“No matter what the amount is, as long as there is some thought about sending children to college and some planning, (there) seems to (be) a very high correlation with that being the end result.”
Californians remain anxious about the mental health of public school students four years after the Covid virus closed down schools, according to a new survey released Wednesday. They also indicated they’re lukewarm toward passing a statewide school construction bond.
In the Public Policy Institute of California’s survey of 1,605 California adult residents, 81% of all adults and public school parents said they were strongly or somewhat concerned about students’ mental health and well-being – a view that, for most part, cut across race, political party affiliation and family income. The number reflects a continuing worry about the persistent impact of the pandemic two years after students returned to the classroom following school closures of more than a year.
SOURCE: PPIC Statewide Survey, April 2024. Survey was fielded from March 19-25, 2024 (n=1,605 adults, n=1,089 likely voters, and n=252 public school parents).PPIC
Advocates for a statewide bond to build and repair TK-12 school facilities may face an uphill battle to pass it – assuming Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislators put the issue before voters in November.
Only 53% of likely voters said they would vote for a state bond, while 44% said they’d vote no, with only 3% undecided, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, which on Wednesday released its annual survey of voters’ view on TK-12 education issues. The number is well below 60%, the standard level of favorability that comforts backers of an initiative heading into a campaign.
The mid-March survey also found mixed views on how Newsom and the Legislature are handling the state education system; 51% of all Californians and 60% of public school parents said they liked how he had managed education. That’s the lowest number since his election in 2018, and consistent with PPIC’s most recent survey on his overall job performance. The survey had a margin of error of 3.3% plus or minus.
Newsom’s highest rating was in April 2020, when 73% of likely voters approved and 26% disapproved of his performance on TK-12 education. That coincided with the emergence of the coronavirus, and his decision to close schools. “Newsom got a bump in the early days of the crisis for responding decisively amid the shock of the pandemic,” said Mark Baldassare, survey director and chair of public policy for PPIC.
The Legislature and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond also received roughly 50% approval in the latest survey; however, the poll also showed that most Californians agreed with their positions on social and political issues that captured headlines in the past year.
69% of all adults said they strongly (43%) or somewhat (26%) oppose individual school boards passing laws to ban and remove certain books from classrooms and school libraries; a smaller majority of public school parents (30% strongly, 25% somewhat) agreed. Last year, Newsom threatened to fine Temecula Valley Unified and replace a social studies textbook that the board rejected because it included a reference to the late gay activist Harvey Milk; the board reversed its position.
58% of all adults and 55% of public school parents oppose individual school boards creating policies to restrict what subjects teachers and students can discuss in the classroom.
More than 80% of adults and public school parents strongly or somewhat favor teaching about the history of slavery, racism, and segregation in public schools; more than 50% of all respondents strongly held that view.
Local schools got good marks for preparing students for college, but less so the workforce. 60% of all adults and 72% of public school parents said their schools did well preparing students for college, while 51% of all adults and 65% said they did a good job preparing students for jobs and the workforce. Only 45% of African American respondents said the schools did a good job for college, compared with 64% of Asian Americans, 61% of Latinos and 61% of Whites.
As with these and many of the issues surveyed, there was a sharp partisan division, with most Democrats supporting Newsom’s positions and most Republicans opposing them.
California adults were about evenly split (50% support, 49% oppose), however, on whether to allow books with stories about transgender youth in public schools. Three in four Democrats support this, while eight in 10 Republicans oppose it, and independents are divided (51% support, 48% oppose). Only 42% of public school parents support the idea, and 57% said they oppose it; they also opposed including lessons on transgender issues by the same breakdown.
Newsom and the Legislature have committed billions of dollars to phase in voluntary transitional kindergarten for all 4-year-olds. Two-thirds of all adults, including 77% of public school parents, 80% of Democrats, 41% of Republicans, 84% of Blacks, and 57% of Whites, said that’s a good idea.
Uncertainty about bond issue
Newsom said in January that he supports placing a school construction bond on the November statewide ballot; voters last passed a state bond in 2016, and the state has run out of money to contribute to districts’ share of new construction and renovations.
However, Newsom and legislative leaders have not negotiated the specifics. School consultant Kevin Gordon, president of Capitol Advisors, said that polling results could affect the size and scope of a bond. Instead of a $15 billion bond that legislative leaders have discussed, it could be much less; instead of including money for the University of California and California State University, which polls less favorably than TK-12, it could include money only for TK-12 and community colleges, he said.
Gordon and Baldassare disagreed on how much to read into the 53% support of the bond eight months before the election.
“All of the not-so-good news about the state budget, with billions of dollars in red ink, has had an impact on voters’ attitude that affects the bond issue now,” Gordon said. “But after this summer, with a balanced budget adopted, and with economists optimistic about the latter part of 2024, voters’ attitude could change.”
Credit: Public Policy Institute of California, April 2024 survey
Four years ago, voters rejected a state bond 46% to 54% in the March 2020 primary election. But, Gordon said, voters have never defeated a state bond initiative in a November election, which attracts more people to the polls.
Baldassare said the bare majority support in the survey shows “there is a lot of economic anxiety among voters over inflation and anxiety over taking on more debt.” That showed in the bare passage last month, with 50.2% of the vote, of Proposition 1. It will determine how to spend money on housing for unhoused people suffering from mental illness.
The survey also produced mixed, and perhaps puzzling results to the same questions asked in previous surveys:
Asked “how concerned are you that California’s K-12 public school students in lower-income areas are less likely than other students to be ready for college,” 39% this year said “very concerned.” That’s the lowest percentage since the question was introduced in 2010, when 59% said they were very concerned.
Asked, “How would you rate the quality of public schools in your neighborhood today,” 49% of likely voters gave their schools an A or B. That’s nine percentage points higher than last year and in pre-pandemic 2019.
Asked whether the quality of education has gotten worse over the past few years, 52% of adults said it was worse, 11% said it had improved, and 34% said about the same. That was an improvement from last year, when 62% said education had gotten worse and only 5% said it had improved – and far better than in 2011. That was during the depths of the Great Recession, when school districts were slashing budgets following cuts in state revenue: that year, 62% said schools had gotten worse.
EdSource has been on it when big shifts happen – like the Department of Education shutting down many areas of their work. But we also remain committed to following the long-term stories in our communities and having an impact through our reporting.
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Baleria Contreras and Monica Cha, representatives with the state’s CalKIDS program, explained what the scholarship funds could be used for once students graduate from high school during a community event at Golden 1 Credit Union in Fresno on April 5, 2025.
Credit: Lasherica Thornton / EdSource
Top Takeaways
CalKIDS is a state program providing seed money for college or career to eligible public school students.
The number of students claiming their CalKIDS accounts is up by nearly 4 percentage points since last year, but it is still far from reaching most of the state’s students.
The increase is linked to more community engagement, targeted campaigns and multilingual materials.
The doors of the Golden 1 Credit Union remained ajar on April 5 as elementary-aged kids played games or had their faces painted outside while families inside circled the display tables featuring material from the bank and CalKIDS.
The event was to encourage families to open a youth education savings account as well as learn about and claim at least $500 in free scholarship money already sitting in a state-funded account.
Erica Wade-Lamas registered for the interest-bearing money for three of her four Fresno Unified students, an eighth grader and twin seventh graders. (Her twelfth grader was at a prom and would claim his own money later at home.)
“It’s going to be easier on me and my husband, knowing that there’s an extra cushion when they do graduate, to have the ability to use that money for a laptop or something additional that’s not going to have to come out of our pockets,” said Wade-Lamas. “That’s what I’m excited about.”
Even though the money is automatically deposited into the savings account under a student’s name, families must claim the accounts by registering online. Students can claim the money up until age 26.
To expand its reach and create more awareness, CalKIDS is drawing on lessons from the past, plus the perspective of a new director. The program has changed its approach to marketing and expanded its multilingual and community engagement.
Over 3.9 million school-aged children across the state now qualify for at least $500 with CalKIDS, the savings account launched by the state in 2022. It automatically awards at least $500 to low-income students and English learners with the goal of helping families save for college or career training.
The California Department of Education determines eligibility based on students identified as low income under the state’s Local Control Funding Formula or as English language learners.
Low-income public school students and English learners are automatically awarded $500 if they:
Were in grades 1-12 during the 2021-22 school year.
Were enrolled in first grade during the 2022-23 school year.
Are first graders in subsequent years, meaning the number of accounts grows annually.
An additional $500 is deposited for students identified as foster youth and another $500 for students classified as homeless.
Since last year, the number of students who have claimed their funds has gone up 4 percentage points, and 475,862 or 12% of all accounts statewide have been claimed, still far from reaching most of the state’s students.
And since hundreds of thousands of new accounts are automatically added each year, maintaining and increasing the percentage of claimed accounts will be an ever-elusive target, especially as the program starts tackling new challenges created by Assembly Bill 2508, which will expand program eligibility.
The struggle to reach more families
The program’s new director, Cassandra DiBenedetto, appointed in October 2024, has visited various communities to learn about the unique barriers and experiences of those who qualify for CalKIDS.
“What children in Modoc County are experiencing is very different than what children in LA County are experiencing,” she said. “So I’ve really tried to reach out to our partners in various communities and learn about their experiences so that we make well-informed decisions … based on the lived experience of the people we’re trying to reach.”
Awareness — or a lack thereof — has been the No. 1 challenge related to CalKIDS account access.
To improve that, DiBenedetto and her team have, in the past six months, focused on partnering with organizations across the state.
From its inception in summer 2022 through the end of 2023, CalKIDS partnered with about 550 organizations to promote the program, according to the state treasurer’s office. Now it works with more than 1,000 community-based organizations, school districts and financial institutions.
“More and more people are approaching us saying, ‘Hey, we know you’re doing this thing. We want to be involved,’” DiBenedetto said. “I don’t know that, in the first two years of the program, that was necessarily the case, so I think that has been a huge change for us.”
Partnerships, targeted outreach are key
Thanh-Truc “April” Hoang, a second-year student at the University of California Riverside, remembers attending an open house on campus as a high school senior in 2023 and seeing a display table with Riverside County Office of Education material about free money for college. Hoang learned about CalKIDS and what the $500 could be used for. She and her three younger siblings would go on to claim their accounts.
Attending UC Riverside the following semester due to its proximity to her home, Hoang commuted back and forth to campus, saving thousands of dollars in on-campus expenses but faced one unexpected cost: parking. She requested and received her CalKIDS funds to pay for the annual parking permit, lifting a burden off her shoulders — and her parents.
“I didn’t want to burden my parents with having to pay for my college parking,” she said. “I wanted them to feel like they didn’t have to constantly keep looking after me, because I have three younger siblings (two of whom are in high school). I wanted to make sure their burden could be alleviated.”
Since Hoang and her siblings claimed their accounts once she was aware of it, the CalKIDS funds will continue helping her family.
“I was just really glad that we were able to find out about this resource,” said Hoang, who helped her younger cousins claim their accounts.
In its back-to-school campaign from July to October 2024, CalKIDS used social media and mailers to inform high schoolers and high-school graduates about the money waiting to be claimed.
DiBenedetto said that more than 94,000 accounts were claimed in that one targeted marketing campaign; 73% of the new accounts belonged to high school graduates or college students, who could use their money right away.
She said a new partnership with the California Cradle-to-Career Data System will further help reach that population of students, as will partnerships with the California Student Aid Commission and the community college chancellor’s office, which can connect with college students who haven’t claimed their funds.
Addressing language, literacy barriers
Last year, advocates, such as those at End Poverty in California, suggested ways for local communities and the CalKIDS program to address the barriers limiting account access, including:
Rewriting informational materials to a third-grade reading level so more families understand the content.
Advocating for multilingual outreach at the state level.
The CalKIDS team has expanded its multilingual media campaigns, too, ensuring materials, such as event fliers, are available in at least the top 10 languages spoken in California — something that wasn’t available a year ago, DiBenedetto said.
“We are meeting people where they are in the language that they speak,” she said.
Subtle shifts in the way CalKIDS is framed and talked about are just as important as language and literacy, said many interviewed.
According to DiBenedetto, instead of using the term “savings account,” CalKIDS materials now say “scholarship,” “a baby’s first scholarship,” “the easiest scholarship your child will ever get” and simply “claim your money.”
“Sometimes it’s things like the word ‘account’ (that) can be scary in some populations,” she said. “These populations understand the word scholarship.”
Increased awareness, access
Awareness is growing as a result of increased partnerships, targeted outreach and changes in material to address language access and reading comprehension, DiBenedetto said.
“More kids are taking advantage of their CalKIDS scholarship accounts,” she said about the more than 475,000 student accounts claimed as of March 31.
But hundreds of thousands of accounts for first graders are added annually, making the percentage of claimed accounts a “moving target,” she said.
Newborn accounts
Those born in the state between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023, were awarded $25 before the seed deposit increased to $100. The California Department of Public Health provides information on newborns. Parents who link the CalKIDS account to a ScholarShare 529 college savings account are eligible for an additional $50 deposit for their newborns. A partnership with Covered California has tied the completion of well-child visits and vaccinations to the ability to earn up to $1,000 in the newborn accounts until March 2026.
More than 400,000 accounts are added annually for newborns as well, and children born in California after June 2023, regardless of their parents’ income, are granted $100.
Nearly 96,000 of over 1 million eligible newborn accounts have been claimed as of March 31.
Altogether, the claimed student and newborn accounts total 571,631, representing an 82% increase from this time last year.
Challenges ahead
Due to September 2024 legislation, CalKIDS’ eligibility will expand to all foster youth in grades 1-12, starting next school year until 2029.
The CalKIDS team does not yet know the numbers for all eligible foster youth but reported that 3,093 claimed their accounts so far. Based on 2023-24 state data, nearly 30,000 students are foster youth, a number that will likely remain consistent next school year when the legislation takes effect.
Millions of dollars have been allocated to program outreach and collaboration.
But in the 2025 budget approved in June, $5 million was reverted back to the general fund, a maneuver often taken to share funds with other programs.
Because the program was still in its early stages, DiBenedetto said, it had a minimal impact on outreach efforts.
The expanded program eligibility and funding changes may present unforeseen obstacles, but the CalKIDS team plans to tackle those challenges by using them as learning opportunities.
“I think that we’ve learned a lot over the last couple years,” DiBenedetto said. “I’ve learned a lot over the last (six) months, and we are ready for whatever comes our way. Every challenge is really just opportunity.”
Political signs for the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified school board are on display at an intersection in Yorba Linda.
Credit: Courtesy of Kevin Reed
Millions of California residents will not have the opportunity to vote for the people representing them on their school boards on Nov. 5 because many of the board races will not appear on the ballot.
EdSource analyzed data from 1,510 school board races in 49 California counties and found that 851 races, or 56%, will not appear on a ballot because either no one is running for the seat or a single candidate is running unopposed – making that person an instant winner.
The problem is most prevalent in more remote areas of the state, where the lack of school board members has been an ongoing issue, said Troy Flint, chief information officer for the California School Boards Association.
Districts in rural counties have smaller populations, limiting the pool of candidates for school board, and offer fewer incentives — such as monthly stipends or health insurance — than larger districts, said Yuri Calderon, executive director of the Small School Districts’ Association.
In Siskiyou County, 14 school districts do not have candidates running for their open board seats, and in San Benito County, there are 20 candidates for 31 open school board seats, leaving 13 seats without candidates. Only one race, for Trustee Area 4 in the Hollister School District, is on the ballot. It has three candidates.
In Nevada County, four of the nine districts have no candidates for their open board seats. In Plumas County, there are no school board races on the Nov. 5 ballot, although there are a total of six open seats in two districts, according to the county elections department.
School board members are responsible for setting the vision for the district, hiring its superintendent, adopting policies and curriculum, passing a balanced district budget, overseeing facilities, providing direction for and accepting collective bargaining agreements, monitoring student achievement and making program changes as needed, according to the California School Boards Association.
Calderon recalls having to convince community members to run for school board when he was the chief business officer at Cold Spring School District, which serves 193 K-6 students in Santa Barbara County.
There is less incentive for rural residents to run for school board because they are usually more satisfied with their schools and less likely to think of a school board seat as a springboard to higher political office, like candidates in more populated areas of the state might, Calderon said.
The absence of school board candidates on the ballot suggests an erosion of what many regard as a pillar of American democracy in places where there is reluctance or unwillingness to run for board positions.
Cities, suburbs also have a shortage of candidates
“One of the dynamics that’s been playing out has been people reluctant to hold onto their seats, and then people are reluctant to run for office because there’s a lot of hostility out there, and sometimes threatening behavior that are prompting either existing school board members or potential school board members to rethink whether or not they want to hold this office,” said John Rogers, director of the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at UCLA.
The shortage of willing school board candidates is also impacting urban and suburban areas, according to the EdSource analysis. In Los Angeles County, for example, 252 candidates are running for 174 seats, meaning 90 seats have only one candidate and will not be on the ballot. The same goes for Sacramento County, where there are only 54 candidates running for 31 seats and San Diego County where 169 candidates are vying for 100 seats.
Calderon and Siskiyou County Superintendent of Schools Allan Carver agree that potential candidates are sometimes wary about running for a board seat because of the political divisiveness that has been playing out at school board meetings.
“It’s kind of one of those thankless jobs,” Calderon said. “And there has been a lot in the media about controversial issues and people becoming very, more so than just polarized, kind of aggressive with their positions. And I think that people shy away from wanting to get involved in that.”
Some rural district seldom hold elections
The lack of candidates is so common in some rural districts, school boards routinely fill empty seats by appointing people – often the incumbents – after the filing deadline ends. Some districts rarely have elections.
“It’s very typical,” said Krystal Lomanto, San Benito County superintendent of schools. “We have seven rural districts and many of those districts do not have board members that actually run for seats – they end up appointing them. So, it is a consistent practice, at least in our community. We don’t often have – in our rural school districts – board members that run against each other, so it happens quite often.”
San Benito County, a rural county in the Central Coast region, has some of the smallest school districts in the state – 15 districts with a total enrollment of 11,969 students.
In Siskiyou County, the northernmost county in the state, there are 30 candidates running for 67 school board seats in 25 districts. Fourteen school districts have no candidates for any of their open board seats and six districts have 11 seats with candidates running unopposed.
Carver expects the number of vacancies to dwindle by January when many of the open seats will be claimed by incumbents who did not file candidacy paperwork, but will continue to hold their seats by appointment.
“A lot of these vacancies, they’d hardly even consider them vacant because I bet more than half of those — probably 20 of the 37 — the (incumbent) board members are like, ‘No, I’m happy to serve. I just didn’t get my paperwork in, so just appoint me,’” Carver said.
Finding candidates for board seats in extremely small districts can be difficult. The result is often multiple family members sitting on one board. Delphic Elementary School District in Siskiyou County is governed by a board made up of a mother, father and their adult daughter, Carver said. The single school serves 65 students, many from outside the district — limiting the number of parents eligible to run for school board, he said.
“This family happens to own property that borders the school and their driveway goes right by the school,” Carver said. “Their kids went to school there, and they’ve had a long history of supporting it. So, talk about local control.”
Stipends, insurance could attract candidates
Carver is doing what he can to make being a member of the Siskiyou County Board of Education more attractive. He recently convinced the board to raise the monthly stipend from $40 to $100 so that he could attract more candidates. He said the board, like many other rural school boards, was reluctant to increase their own pay. The board also receives health insurance.
Most school districts in Siskiyou County can’t afford to pay their board a stipend to cover expenses or to offer them insurance, Carver said.
What happens if no one runs for a seat?
If no one runs for a board seat, school boards can either appoint a trustee or hold a special election. Most boards opt to appoint a trustee to avoid costly special elections.
Santa Cruz City Schools Superintendent Kris Munro sent a letter to families last month asking parents to consider applying for a seat on the board that does not have a candidate in the upcoming election. District officials also sent news releases about the available seat, advertised it in video updates and on the district’s social media accounts, and placed a legal notice in a local newspaper, said Sam Rolens, district spokesperson.
The district, which serves 4,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, along the state’s Central Coast, has three open seats. The two other seats that are available have one only candidate each, meaning they also will not be on the ballot.
Applicants for the open Santa Cruz seat without a candidate had until Oct. 18 to file their applications. Three days before the deadline, two people had applied, Rolens said. The district offers its trustees a $50 monthly stipend, according to Santa Cruz Local.
Santa Cruz County has even fewer residents interested in running for school boards this year than in the previous election, according to Santa Cruz Local. Three-quarters of the open board seats in Santa Cruz County, including those in Santa Cruz City Schools, will not be on the ballot on Nov. 5, according to the news site.
Boards must have quorum to conduct business
Having a full board is imperative for conducting the school district’s business. In order to vote on agenda items, a school board must have the majority of its board in attendance. Five-member boards, for example, must have at least three, and seven-member boards must have at least four members present to take action on an agenda item.
If the school district cannot fill enough board seats to have a quorum, the county Office of Education can send one of its board members to act as a substitute until the district can make an appointment.
Having a member of the Board of Education sit on school boards isn’t common, but it has happened a few times in Siskiyou County, Carver said. In one case, a county Board of Education member became a temporary board member at a tiny district serving 25 students after it lost two members of its three-person board. In another case, a board member sat on a district board for three months until they found a willing appointee, Carver said.
Despite the dire shortage of school board candidates, Carver says he tries to encourage people who will be willing to learn and consider all sides of an issue to run for office.
“You know, we always want to encourage people who have the right faculties and demeanor, and seek to truly govern for all and don’t have just one specific issue they’re concerned about,” Carver said.
Five years ago, Californians thought schools were headed in the right direction; they no longer do.
Most adults say teaching basics should be the No. 1 goal of school; parents of students disagree.
Nearly all in the survey agree that teachers’ pay is too low.
Californians’ confidence in their public schools and approval of how Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature are handling public education have fallen sharply since the Covid pandemic, according to an annual survey on K-12 education released Thursday by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). Half believe that the public school system is headed in the wrong direction.
The PPIC survey of 1,591 adults in English and Spanish also found widespread disagreement and overall concern with President Donald Trump’s actions on schools.
Nearly three-quarters of Californians oppose Trump’s executive order to close the U.S. Department of Education.
Two-thirds of adults are very or somewhat concerned about increased federal immigration efforts against undocumented students, and majorities support their local districts’ self-designation as “safe zones” from immigration enforcement.
Democratic and Republican respondents were sharply divided on this and many issues in the survey, however.
An exception is voters’ agreement with Trump’s executive order to ban transgender participation in sports in schools and colleges. That resonates with 65% of adults and 71% of public school parents. They back requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams matching the sex assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with — a position in sync with Newsom’s, but not with many of the state’s Democratic leaders.
PPIC is a prominent nonpartisan research and public policy organization that explores issues of the environment, politics, economics and education, and regularly surveys Californians on their views. The latest education survey has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, meaning that 95 times out of 100, the results will be within 3.1 percentage points of what they would be if all adults in California were interviewed. The survey was administered between March 27 and April 4.
How the state is handling schools
In April 2020, weeks after Covid first emerged, 73% of survey respondents said they approved of how Newsom handled the K-12 system, and 26% disapproved.
Five years later, approval has fallen to 50% while disapproval has risen to 46%. Newsom registered majority support among Black and Asian Americans, and the least support among white people (43%). While 73% of Democrats approve of his performance, only 13% of Republicans and 44% of independents do.
Views of the Legislature’s handling of schools were similar: a high-water mark of 69% approval and 29% disapproval in April 2020, and an even 48%-48% split in April 2025, with 5% saying they didn’t have an opinion.
Mark Baldassare, director of PPIC’s statewide surveys, said the approval numbers of elected officials fluctuate based on “how people feel the system in general is working and if state officials in charge are meeting the moment.”
“I remember a lot of the polling numbers around the country at the beginning of the pandemic were showing there was a rallying around our leaders and maybe a little bit of wishful thinking that we’re going to get through this,” he said.
“It’s hard to blame Newsom and the Legislature. They’ve been very supportive of programs and funding for education,” said Carol Kocivar, past president of the California State PTA and a writer on education policy for ED 100, a parent education website.
“Schools have been through the wringer. Some districts are barely balancing budgets and are facing a teacher shortage and declining enrollment. All of these factors create perceptions of schools. Behavior problems and inability to pay attention from an addiction to social media don’t necessarily reflect what is happening in schools,” she said.
In past PPIC surveys, particularly after the Great Recession, when per-student funding in California was among the lowest in the nation, the public’s view was even lower. In 2015, only 35% of respondents approved of how the Legislature was handling education. When asked the same question in 2011, amid huge post-recession budget cuts, the approval rate was only 18%.
Similarly, in response to the question, “How much of a problem is the quality of education in K-12 schools today?” 35% of all respondents say it is a big problem in the latest survey. That’s down from 27% in April 2020, but lower than each of the previous 18 years. In both 2012 and 2016, for example, 58% of all respondents said that education quality was a problem, and in 2000, 53%.
Right or wrong direction?
In the latest survey, 45% of all adults say that the school system overall is generally going in the right direction, while 51% say it’s headed in the wrong direction. There is a partisan divide, with 65% of Democrats saying it’s in the right direction and only 16% of Republicans and 38% of independents agreeing.
That answer, too, is down from April 2020, when 62% of all respondents said the school system was going in the right direction and only 30% said it was headed in the wrong direction.
Asked to grade the quality of their local public schools from A to F, 12% of respondents assigned an A; 36% graded B; 33% graded C; 11% graded D, and 6% an F.
That’s down from the 20% who gave schools an A in 2018, the last time the question was asked.
Challenges facing schools
In the latest survey, respondents indicated that the challenges to schools — chronic absenteeism and declining enrollment, along with threats of wildfires and school shootings, a perennial worry — remain top of mind.
A majority of adults (55%) and almost half of public school parents (47%) are very concerned or somewhat concerned about chronic absenteeism (defined as a student’s absence on 10% or more of school days). More Black (32%) and Hispanic (24%) adults than whites and Asians (both 14%) say they are very concerned about the problem.
Since school funding is tied to attendance, more public school parents (68%) say they are very or somewhat concerned than all adults (61%) surveyed that declining enrollment would affect funding for their local public schools.
Source: PPIC Statewide Survey 2025
School financing
Asked about the current level of state funding in the latest survey, 48% say it is not enough, 34% say just enough, and 13% more than enough. Perhaps reflecting the huge one-time state and federal Covid relief aid, that number is down significantly since 2012 and in 2000, when 63% said funding was not enough.
At the same time, nearly all Californians say that the level of pay for teachers relative to living costs is either a big problem (38%) or somewhat of a problem (48%).
Vouchers: In 2002, California voters resoundingly rejected a ballot initiative to provide parents with state funding to send their children to a public or private school of their choice by a vote of 70% to 30%. The latest PPIC survey indicated 44% of likely voters favor a school voucher system, and 56% oppose it. However, 62% of public school parents, Black and Hispanic respondents, now say they too favor it.
Supporters of an alternative voucher plan to place an initiative for an education savings account on the statewide ballot in 2026.
School priorities: Asked what they think should be the most important goal of K-12 education, the top three priorities of all respondents are:
Teaching students the basics including math, reading, and writing, 40%’
Teaching students life skills (21%)
Preparing students for college (16%)
In contrast, Hispanic Californians (27%) and public school parents (32%) say preparing students for college should be the top goal.
LCFF: In 2012, the Legislature passed the Local Control Funding Formula, which provides additional money to school districts with more English learners and low-income students. Each year, read a short summary of the formula, large majorities surveyed say they favor it (this year 66% of all respondents).
And yet each year, between 68% and 80% of respondents say they knew nothing at all about the landmark law, including this year 75% of all respondents and 67% of public school parents.
School districts are required to reach out to parents for their ideas on how to spend the funding. This year, two-thirds of all parents of school-age children – those with a college degree and those without, those earning more than $80,000 per year and those earning less – said their districts had failed to do so.
The science is clear: 80% of brain growth happens by the age of 3, laying the foundation for a child’s cognitive, social, and emotional development. Every moment in which we do not invest in babies’ development is a critical missed opportunity to lay the foundation for our future.
That’s why babies urgently need high-quality, affordable early learning and care from birth. Unfortunately, for many families, this is either too expensive or unavailable, forcing parents into impossible choices between their careers and raising their children.
This dire shortage of care options affects more than just parents. When families can’t find high-quality, affordable care, the ripple effects are felt across workplaces, classrooms, and communities. Parents — and, in most cases, mothers — are often forced to leave the workforce, creating financial instability for their families, reducing career opportunities for women and decreasing the overall productivity in our economy.
To expand access and make early learning and care available to all of California’s children, our educators and caregivers need our support. These professionals, the majority of whom are women of color, are among the lowest-paid workers in the state. This chronic underinvestment has pushed many of them to leave the field, worsening an already extreme shortage of care.
We must expand the workforce because, while 36% of infants and toddlers qualify for subsidized care, only 14% have access to a space. But California — which has led the nation in taking bold action by creating access to universal preschool through the expansion of Transitional Kindergarten (TK) for all 4-year-old children and expanding access to state preschool to 3-year-olds — can close this gap.
It’s time to put solutions into action. Scaling successful models across early learning and care settings means expanding proven, high-quality programs to reach more children, especially those who live in communities that are under-resourced. By adapting these models to child care programs of all sizes — from home-based providers to large early learning centers — we can ensure more children have access to the education and support they need to thrive.
Here’s how we can act now:
Continue to support reforms to child care reimbursement rates to reflect the true cost of care. The goal is to develop policies to give caregivers a just and livable wage.
The Legislature and governor should move ahead with their plans to expand child care access to thousands more children of working-class families through the commitment to funding 200,000 new subsidized child care slots by the 2027-28 state budget, but they should target this access to infants and toddlers, because that is what families need the most.
We must remove the roadblocks to opening new child care centers and home-based providers, such as: allowing new early learning and care teachers to obtain their required college courses while working, as well as speeding up the time it takes for state child care licensing to approve new facilities, as we are currently advocating for at the legislative level.
Let’s Do This, Together
By listening to families; supporting early learning educators and providers; and working collaboratively with our governor, the Legislature, state leaders, and our partners, we can build a system that works for everyone. The future of our state depends on the decisions we make today.
Our babies can’t wait. Let’s act now to ensure they get the support they need to thrive.
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Patricia Lozano is the executive director of Early Edge California, a nonprofit organization that advocates for accessible, high-quality early learning and care for communities that are under-resourced, with a primary focus on babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. Scott Moore is the CEO of Kidango, a leading early childhood non-profit that serves thousands of low-income children and families.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the authors. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
