Financial Aid Access Imperiled by SAP, New Report Highlights Needed Reform to Promote Student Success
Hugh T. Ferguson
July 23, 2021
A new study focusing on California’s community colleges found that 1 in 4 students lose access to financial aid after just one year of college due to Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP), making it more difficult for first-generation and low-income students to complete their programs.
The report, which aims to bolster the availability of quantitative analysis of SAP, homes in on the California community college system and details that while students are able to access financial aid at the outset of their enrollment, a sizable number of students lose access to financial aid after just one year of college due to SAP academic standards with those students unlikely to return.
In a recent panel discussion John Burton Advocates for Youth’s (JBAY) Debbie Raucher, director of education, offered key insights into how the development and implementation of SAP has made accessing financial aid more difficult for students.
The report’s focus on the California Community College system, which is the largest public postsecondary system in the country, serving over 2.1 million students annually across 116 campuses, utilized data collected in the fall of 2017.
