Anti-Displacement

With scholarship displacement,
the level stays the same or rises less.

Have you ever heard of scholarship displacement? Unlike displacement in the sciences, adding more sources of student aid may not add to the total package. From EdSource: 

When Jason Vazquez began his freshman year at the University of California, Berkeley, scholarships were a crucial part of his college financing plan. As a low-income student who had navigated the financial aid process alone, he was thrilled that, in addition to receiving financial aid from UC Berkeley, he had been selected — through a competitive process that involved an essay and an interview — for a $1,500 scholarship from a local organization to support his education. After enrolling at the university, however, he discovered that Cal had “repackaged” his financial aid after he reported the $1,500 scholarship. Instead of gaining additional funding to pay for college by winning an outside scholarship, Vazquez found himself with an altered financial aid package that included more loans, less grant money and less work-study.

Known as “scholarship displacement,” this is a little known but common practice wherein one form of a student’s financial aid, like a university grant, is reduced or canceled when the student receives an outside scholarship. Scholarship displacement affects thousands of students across California and the United States, unnecessarily undermining their ability to seek additional sources of funding for their education...

 Assembly Bill 288... would prohibit scholarship displacement and prevent students from losing the critical scholarship dollars they work hard to attain and need to pay for college.* AB 288 focuses on students like Jason Vazquez, who are losing out on critical scholarship dollars that they need to bridge the gap between the cost of college and their financial aid funds. Ending scholarship displacement has bipartisan support in the Legislature because it’s an issue that can impact any student who needs financial assistance to attend college. AB 288 bans scholarship displacement for over 1 million low-income college students in California...

Full story at https://edsource.org/2022/its-time-to-end-scholarship-displacement/676798.

Editorial Note: There is another side to this story. While 100% displacement might discourage students from seeking additional aid sources, some degree of displacement less than 100% might add to the total funding available for student aid.

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*The bill is at https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB288.

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