You’re not alone!

In our most recent case, a student was deemed a non-resident by a CSU admissions department (correctly) on April 19, 2023. Yet two days later, on April 21, 2023, the student was deemed a resident by the Financial Aid department (incorrectly), and was assigned resident-only grant aid (with no indication that it was resident-only).

The grant aid was later rescinded in September, after the student left their job and moved hundreds of miles to begin schooling. The student was low-income and forced to take out far more student loans than originally intended in order to stay in school and survive; or , they could risk homelessness while delaying their education and applying for new jobs in a new city.

See the “About” section for official emails and documents related to this latest incident.

You can help by emailing, calling, and otherwise pressuring administrators within the CSU System to change policies related to how residency and aid are determined and assigned, as their operational failures are putting students in distress. The goal is clear: Empower Financial Aid offices to get residency status right from day one.