College Futures Foundation: California College Student Emergency Support Fund

The California College Student Emergency Support Fund launched on April 2nd to give one-time $500 hardship grants to students. Administered by Mission Asset Fund (MAF), the Fund is a statewide philanthropic response to address emergency needs for the state’s low-income college students, including undocumented immigrants, foster youth, and those who are housing insecure.

As colleges and universities respond to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, students find themselves facing a wide variety of challenges and costs. The Fund was created to cover unplanned financial expenses such as housing, technology, and more to support educational continuity, persistence, and degree completion for California’s college students through this crisis.

Details about the fund: To be eligible for the California College Student Emergency Support Fund, students must:

• Be currently enrolled full-time (12+ units) as an undergraduate at a California Community College, California State University, or University of California campus
• Have arned at least 24 semester units or 36 quarter units (i.e., one academic year of coursework)
• Be low-income, with a maximum Estimated Family Contribution (EFC) of $5,576 (equivalent to eligibility for Pell Grant) or eligible for a California College Promise Grant Fee Waiver (formerly known as the BOG fee waiver)

Applications and grant payments to students are being processed by MAF. MAF is a well-established non-profit organization that carried out a similar emergency fund effort in 2017 to pay for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients’ renewal fees.

Funders who are interested in supporting this statewide fund should contact media@collegefutures.org.

VISIT FUND