The Brief

Electric bikes and scooters can be spotted in most major cities in the United States, zooming past their non-motorized counterparts and pedestrians. Despite the devices’ rising popularity, colleges across California can’t come to a consensus on just what to do about them.

Some campuses allow students to ride both e-bikes and e-scooters, while others only allow one or restrict them to certain zones. Several ban them completely.

For college students, these modes of transportation mean shorter commute times compared to walking. They’re far cheaper to rent or buy than vehicles, and easier to park, too. Since they run on electric-powered batteries, the devices are also more sustainable than gas-powered cars and produce fewer harmful emissions.

Riding an e-scooter allows Kristine Bhan, a fourth-year Cal State Long Beach student majoring in studio art, to haul heavy art supplies up the campus’ many hills.

“I hang my art supplies in a folder and the folder has a little hook, so I could hook it onto my scooter and I just ride it to upper campus,” said Bhan, who also prefers her e-scooter over her car during peak traffic.

E-bikes and e-scooters aren’t just booming on and near college campuses: Motorized micro-mobility is gaining traction across the country.

Shared e-bike trips, which are bikes that can be borrowed or rented from automated stations, or docking stations, rose from 9.5 million in 2018 to 17 million in 2021, according to a report from the National Association of City Transportation Officials.

While the devices are attractive in their speed and convenience, they also pose safety risks. They can travel more than 30 mph, meaning accidents can be severe if the rider isn’t wearing protective gear. Pedestrians are also at risk of being struck.

At UC Davis, nearly a quarter of students (22%) who rode an e-bike had an on-campus fall that resulted in an emergency room or hospital visit, according to a campus-wide travel survey conducted in 2022. Among students who rode a regular bicycle, that number was just 7.5%. Nearly 90% of e-scooter riders who fell or crashed reported an injury that didn’t need medical attention.

The devices pose another safety concern: Their lithium-ion batteries have caught fire in some cases.

Weighing the devices’ benefits and drawbacks, California’s public universities are split on whether e-bikes and e-scooters should roam campus. All 10 UCs allow e-bikes while only five UCs allow e-scooters. In the 23-campus CSU system, 10 campuses allow both e-bikes and e-scooters, while of the 116 community colleges in the state, at least 40 allow both devices. Some of those campuses restrict them to certain routes or zones.

Regulating motorized micro-mobility

Micro-mobility refers to all transportation devices smaller than a car — including bikes, scooters, skateboards, unicycles and tricycles. E-bikes and e-scooters are electric-powered with motors of up to 750 watts. The devices typically cost between $150 and $3,000.

The vehicle code allows state colleges and universities to regulate the use of bicycles, e-bikes, skateboards, electric skateboards, roller skates and “electrically motorized boards,” but does not specifically include all scooters and e-scooters. For this reason, some campuses, such as Sacramento State, allow e-scooters because campus officials don’t believe the state gives them the power to deny their use on campus.

“We actually don’t have authority, as the state of California, to tell an electric scooter operator where they can and cannot go,” said Sacramento State Director of Transportation and Parking Services Jeff Dierking.

A student rides their scooter past a dismount sign as they enter the zone where she can be on the scooter rather than walking alongside it at Cal State Long Beach on Oct. 4, 2023.

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Senate Bill 295, introduced in February by state Sen. Bill Dodd, a Napa Democrat, would add e-scooters to the vehicle code. The UC Office of the President approached Dodd after several student accidents led the UC to review the code.

“College campuses have long been home to multimodal transportation, and they should pursue safety through effective education, engineering and enforcement,” Dodd said in a statement to CalMatters. “I’m standing by to help to the extent any clarification in law or other support is needed.”

The bill is pending further evaluation by the Assembly Transportation Committee.

Convenience vs. safety

It’s not hard to see why e-bikes and e-scooters are trending among students: they’re fast, fairly light and can be parked at bike racks.

After trying out her friend’s e-scooter, Anjali Patel, a senior majoring in journalism at USC, bought one of her own last year. USC allows e-bikes and e-scooters on most of its campus but prohibits the parking of rented scooters, which would cause congestion, said USC Department of Public Safety Assistant Chief David Carlisle.

Riding an e-scooter shortens Patel’s commute from her off-campus apartment from a 15-minute walk to less than 10 minutes, which means a lot, she said, when she’s running late for class or during a Southern California heat wave.

“It’s the fastest option. It’s not the most unsafe option,” Patel said. “For me, it’s the best.”

Since some motorized micro-mobility devices can reach speeds of up to 30 or even 40 miles an hour, and users often ride unprotected without helmets and other safeguards, rider safety is a concern. An October 2022 report from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission found that micro-mobility injuries rose 127% from 2017 to 2021, with e-scooter trips resulting in the most rider deaths. Last year, the California Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System recorded 225 crashes involving an e-bike, up from 80 crashes in 2021.

A student rides his scooter among walkers at Cal State Long Beach on Oct. 4, 2023.

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“[E-scooters] are very vulnerable to irregularities in the roadway and can toss a rider off easily if they’re going too fast,” USC’s Carlisle said.

Though Patel admits to going a little faster than she should on her e-scooter — 18 mph at most — she said she’s attentive. When others aren’t, safety becomes an issue.

“People are like, ‘Scooters and bikers are so rude and so unsafe, and they’re going so fast,’” Patel said. “I can’t use my phone while I’m scootering — my eyes are up. If anything, it’s the people walking that are not looking.”

Although she considers herself a safe driver, Patel was injured while riding her e-scooter in December. As she crossed a small intersection near her off-campus house, an idling car began moving — to Patel’s surprise — and hit her.

Luckily, the fall wasn’t too bad and, amid finals week, Patel nursed a scraped chin. The accident hasn’t led her to change the way she rides. She’s always been careful on roads and when riding around pedestrians, Patel said, though she doesn’t wear a helmet.

But some schools have seen serious student injuries — and even fatalities — from motorized micro-mobility accidents.

After a freshman died from falling off his e-skateboard near campus in 2020, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo officials cracked down on most micro-mobility devices on campus, where e-scooters, scooters and skateboards have been prohibited for over a decade. E-bikes and bicycles, however, are allowed.

UC Irvine bans e-scooters from the campus’ inner core, which consists primarily of pedestrian walkways. Bikes, e-bikes and non-motorized scooters, however, are allowed on a road that circles the school’s central park.

Erika Rule, UC Irvine’s sustainable programs manager, said excluding e-scooters, which are commonly ridden on sidewalks, is a matter of “protecting pedestrian safety.”

The motorized devices come with another safety concern: the chance of starting a fire. Improperly charging e-bikes and e-scooters and using damaged chargers can overload electrical circuits, according to the National Fire Protection Association.

In March and April, Berkeley’s fire department responded to six fires related to mobility devices, including one inside a UC Berkeley dormitory. A charging e-skateboard plugged into a power strip caused an accidental fire in March at Ida Sproul Hall, resulting in damage to the room. The school’s principal mobility planner, David Sorrell, said that despite a campus-wide rule against doing so, students often ride inside buildings and charge their devices indoors.

UC Berkeley currently prohibits rented e-scooters from entering campus, but personal devices are allowed in campus bike lanes.

Disseminating information about safe riding practices has been difficult, Sorrell said, given UC Berkeley’s large student and employee populations. That’s why some at the university are eyeing a ban on micro-mobility in their areas of campus. But Sorrell has pushed back.

“The scooters are a necessity. E-bikes are a necessity,” Sorrell said, adding that high-grade hills on campus make motorized devices the easiest way to get around. “Why would we discriminate against those vehicles?”

Some campuses have struck a balance

Managing congestion, traffic flow, parking availability and student safety is a tall task for colleges deciding on micro-mobility policies.

Laney College in Oakland allows e-scooters on campus, while e-bikes have to be dropped off in designated zones on campus, Public Information Officer Mark Johnson wrote in an email to CalMatters.

Sacramento State redesigned its policy on e-bikes and e-scooters in 2019 and allows personal devices on campus with designated pedestrian-only zones, where campus police watch for violators and ask them to dismount their devices. Storage locations — bike racks and a bike compound — border the zones. A geofence around the campus perimeter deactivates all rented e-scooters and e-bikes.

“Those are high-traffic areas, and those are intended so that we can have a safe environment on campus to facilitate all equitable modes of transportation,” said Dierking of Sac State.

Electric scooters are locked at a bike rack on campus at the UC Davis on Oct. 3, 2023.

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Safety concerns arise, Dierking said, when pedestrian-only zones converge with areas allowing wheeled devices. At the start of each school term, the university deploys workers wearing yellow vests to chat about safety with students on mobility devices. It also puts up signage telling road users to slow down at these intersections.

At UC Davis, a fatal student accident involving a non-electric bicycle in May 2022 led university officials to evaluate all micro-mobility policies and safeguards. The university formed working groups and conducted a campus-wide survey about safety and theft.

The working groups heard that motorized micro-mobility devices go too fast and that bikes are often stolen, said Active Modality Manager Jeff Bruchez, who heads the school’s bicycle program. According to the same study, 12% of UC Davis students who rode a bike to school in 2021-22 reported having their bike stolen.

To limit speed and theft, UC Davis introduced a shared e-bike and e-scooter program. UC Davis and the City of Davis launched a partnership with Spin on Sept. 8, making 400 e-bikes and 200 e-scooters available to students while eliminating personal liability for theft and allowing the university to regulate the devices’ maximum speeds, Bruchez said.

“By bringing a shared system onto campus, we can ensure that everyone can operate a device that fits within the ecosystem that we have, specifically that 15-miles-an-hour speed limit,” he said.

A student carries his scooter down the sidewalk at Cal State Long Beach on Oct. 4, 2023.

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The university is hoping that revving up public education programs — including its “Helmet Hair Don’t Care” campaign that rewards students with free helmets after the completion of an eight-minute online safety course — will help reduce the number of severe collisions involving micro-mobility devices.

Across the UC system, another initiative is underway to incentivize e-bike use.

In December, an agreement UC reached with the United Auto Workers union, which represents postdoctoral workers and academic researchers, gives employees access to an e-bike discount program starting with the fall 2023 term.

The program has “made it possible” for UC San Diego sociology master’s student Beatrice Waterhouse to consider buying an e-bike. Climate demands were a key part of bargaining, she said, so the devices’ low environmental impact interested them.

“We care about the environment and we care about our universities being part of change, trying to fight for a more climate-just California and world,” Waterhouse said.

The number of Californians without health insurance could double from 2 million today to 4 million by 2030, according to a report from the state Legislative Analyst's Office. It’s the state budget office’s preliminary attempt to quantify how federal legislation known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” will reshape healthcare access statewide.

The One Big Beautiful Bill is driving nearly 90% of the projected coverage loss, according to the LAO report. It's mostly Medi-Cal enrollees who are expected to be dropped when new work requirements take effect in 2027. The remaining 10% are largely people leaving the state's health insurance marketplace, Covered California, after enhanced federal premium subsidies expired last year.

What's the impact to coverage?

L.A. County officials estimate that recent Medi-Cal changes could put coverage at risk for hundreds of thousands of residents and cost the health departments about $800 million a year. A UC Berkeley Labor Center analysis projected more than 1 million Medi-Cal enrollees could lose coverage by 2028.

The LAO report also warns that county indigent health programs for uninsured residents will soon face a surge in demand they’re not prepared to meet. Those county programs had enrolled about 850,000 people statewide before the federal government expanded Medicaid coverage in 2014. Total enrollment is currently 10,000 statewide, but the trend is going to reverse, according to the report.

What's the impact to health-care providers?

More uninsured people means hospitals and clinics provide more services without getting paid. The LAO projects that uncompensated care costs at hospitals could grow by several billion dollars statewide by 2030. Clinics face steeper losses because they run on smaller budgets and depend more heavily on Medi-Cal revenue.

The LAO also projects premiums on the individual health insurance market will rise as healthier people drop coverage.

What are proposals to help?

The LAO itself doesn’t recommend new spending and instead urges lawmakers to track what happens to hospitals, clinics and county programs before taking action. But both L.A. County and state officials are pushing tax efforts to combat federal cuts.

L.A. County voters will decide June 2 on Measure ER, a half-cent sales tax that would generate about $1 billion a year for hospitals and clinics. ANovember statewide ballot initiative would impose a one-time 5% tax on Californians worth over $1 billion and direct 90% of proceeds to Medi-Cal.

California regulators say State Farm has illegally delayed, underpaid and denied claims from policyholders affected by the 2025 L.A. fires — something fire survivors have said for months.

The California Department of Insurance announced Monday that it has taken the first step in the process to bring the allegations to a public hearing before an administrative judge. That could result in the state’s largest home insurer paying up to about $4 million in penalties, and suspension of its license for up to a year, meaning it could not write new policies in California during that time.

“Our investigation found that State Farm delayed, underpaid, and buried policyholders in red tape at the worst moment of their lives,” state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said in a statement.

The state analyzed 220 randomly selected claims — out of more than 11,000 filed with State Farm in response to last year’s fires — and found hundreds of violations in more than half them. Attorneys for the state called it a “troubling pattern” in their filing.

State Farm denied the allegations and called the state’s move “politically motivated” in a lengthy statement posted to its website.

Every Fire Survivors Network, a coalition representing thousands of L.A. fire survivors, pressured the state for months to investigate State Farm’s handling of wildfire claims.

Joy Chen, who co-founded the group after her home was damaged in the Eaton Fire, said the state’s action is far from enough.

“It’s just very disappointing to see our regulator issue a report that shows his own failures over the last 16 months,” she told LAist.

Only a few dozen homes have been rebuilt so far in both Altadena and Pacific Palisades since the fires destroyed more than 16,000 buildings, mostly homes, in those communities and nearby areas.

A survey by the nonprofit Department of Angels last year found that nearly three-quarters of L.A. fire survivors reported delays, denials and low payouts of their claims across all insurers.

“What we need is for all State Farm contracts to be enforced so that Los Angeles families can have the money that we need to move forward with getting back home,” Chen said.

The state’s alleged violations carry a fine of up to $5,000, and up to $10,000 if the violations are found to be willful. The case will be heard by a state administrative law judge, who will provide a recommendation to Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara on a possible penalty.

The Insurance Department said people with homeowners policies from any insurer can report problems with their claims at insurance.ca.gov or by calling (800) 927-4357.

Yes, you could put a screen in your backyard and call up your friends to watch a particularly compelling World Cup game after the tournament begins June 12.

But FIFA is turning each game into a public celebration, sponsoring 10 outdoor Fan Zone watch parties with large viewing screens across L.A. County through the final on July 19.

Details were released on Monday, including locations, dates and prices.

The Fan Zones open in a staggered schedule from one day to four days each, starting with the Original Farmers Market on June 18 - 21, and then popping up across the region until the glorious end on July 19 in downtown Burbank.

Ticket prices range from free (City of Downey, Union Station L.A., “Magic” Johnson Park, Whittier Narrows) to over $300 for a VIP experience with a viewing lounge and a concert at the downtown Burbank Fan Zone on the day of the World Cup final match on July 19.

Fan Zone kick off

At the first Fan Zone, at The Original Farmers Market from June 18 for four days, entry will cost you $5 per day or $17 for all four days. Kids age 3 and under are free. (FIFA says the zones are family friendly).

You’ll be able to see four matches there each of the four days, including Mexico vs. South Korea on June 18 at 6 p.m. and USA vs. Australia on June 19 at noon.

FIFA World Cup 2026 scarves are displayed during the ribbon cutting for the LAX/Metro Transit Center rail and bus public transportation station at LAX on June 6, 2025.

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You won’t have to squint to find your favorite player or catch the goals. The Farmer’s Market will include a 30-foot viewing screen as well as a 15-foot secondary screen to watch the games. There will be beer gardens, and you can purchase food from the Market's dozens of establishments.

Other Fan Zones

The West Harbor L.A. Fan Zone will give people an opportunity to experience the newest major development along the San Pedro waterfront, a 42-acre waterfront district that’s been years in the making.

The Union Station L.A. Fan Zone on June 25 is free and includes match viewing, music, food, and immersive fan experiences, featuring live DJs.

The final Fan Zone opens July 18 and 19 in downtown Burbank for the World Cup’s last two matches. FIFA says it’ll include “an adjacent international street fair filled with global flavors and cultural experiences.” Tickets range from $25 to over $300

The full list of the Fan Zones is here.

This of course, isn’t the only opportunity to watch World Cup matches with groups of people in SoCal. The city of L.A. will host its own watch parties.

Up against a massive court backlog that can drag their cases for years, asylum seekers face steep costs when pursuing their dreams of college in California.

Asylum-seeking students in California often face a double blow: they are charged higher tuition for nonresidents and excluded from most financial aid. For students and their families, this can mean thousands of dollars paid out of pocket and years of financial stress as their immigration cases remain unresolved.

Before establishing residency, asylum-seeking students are charged non-resident rates, which are about three times what state residents pay for public universities and roughly eight to 13 times more for community colleges, depending on the district.

All asylum seekers are disqualified from federal financial aid. The few who qualify for California’s state aid may never know their options, or face hurdles in obtaining it due to a patchwork of financial aid processes.

The state’s higher education systems are not mandated to track asylum seekers, making state budget impacts nearly unquantifiable during legislative attempts to expand financial aid eligibility.

“I only see them struggling,” said Eric Cline, social services program director at OASIS Legal Services, which supports LGBTQ+ asylum seekers across the Bay Area and Central Valley. “I’m always surprised (when) a few clients tell me 'I just graduated from college.’ I think, ‘Wow, how did that happen?’”

Policy changes stoke uncertainty for asylum seekers

Asylum seeking is one of the least-protected immigration statuses in the U.S. Asylum seekers, who’ve fled their home countries fearing persecution and are asking the U.S. for protection, differ from refugees, whose status is granted before they enter the country. Asylum seekers apply upon arriving in the U.S.

Applicants can stay as their cases remain pending for years, though experts say the Trump administration is expediting deportations for numerous asylum seekers and ending cases before they can receive a full hearing.

As of February 2026, a little over 2.3 million immigrants are awaiting asylum hearings nationwide, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks federal activity. The most recent data shows California alone had about 169,000 pending asylum cases in its immigration courts by the end of 2023 — the second-largest backlog of any state. The average wait for an asylum hearing in California was 1,412 days at that time.

The Trump administration paused asylum cases in November, creating even further delays. The administration has now allowed cases to resume for applicants from all but 40 countries. In the San Francisco immigration court system, which is popular among asylum seekers due to higher acceptance rates, a combination of firings by the Trump administration, retirements and relocations whittled the 21 immigration judges to two, according to reporting in Mission Local. Left behind is a caseload of nearly 119,000 immigration cases, the highest of any immigration court in California.

President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” also established new fees for asylum seekers, placing additional pressure on an already low-income population. Applicants must now pay an initial $100 application fee plus $100 per year while their case is pending, $550 for a work permit, and $745 each year to renew the permit. In addition, a new rule proposed by the Department of Homeland Security would effectively end the ability of asylum seekers to obtain work permits at all.

Royce Hall on the UCLA campus

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As they await a decision, asylum seekers are excluded from federal aid and some state financial aid programs, including Cal Grants under California law.

For one asylum seeker, Carol, being ineligible for financial aid meant she had to take time off from school to work to make ends meet. CalMatters is not using her full name because she fears speaking publicly may jeopardize her asylum case.

Carol did speak before the Assembly Higher Education Committee in 2023 urging lawmakers to pass AB 888, which would have expanded Cal Grant eligibility to certain asylum seekers. The bill ultimately did not pass.

She said she arrived in the United States at 17 and had spent more than six years waiting for her case to move through immigration courts, a period during which she said she was ineligible for financial aid.

“I’ve had to delay my educational journey several times, including going part-time and even taking a semester off from school to work,” Carol told lawmakers.

Without access to aid, she said she experienced homelessness, couch surfing and at one point slept on a mattress topper on a hardwood floor because she could not afford a bed. She worked multiple jobs at a time, skipped meals and attended class without the required course materials.

Her story, she said, was not new. Carol told the committee that four years earlier her brother had testified with a nearly identical experience on behalf of a previous bill that was ultimately vetoed, a cycle she argued could have been prevented.

“Had California taken action then, I wouldn’t have had to face the harrowing experiences that I shared with you today,” she said.

Despite the barriers, Carol graduated from Cal State Long Beach and worked as a caseworker with the International Rescue Committee, helping resettle refugees and asylum seekers. She told lawmakers she hopes to pursue a law degree and become an international human rights attorney.

The narrow path to college aid for asylum-seeking students

Many asylum seekers arrive eager to continue studies they began abroad, but quickly run into what Cline calls “a brick wall."

“All of our clients are low-income … they’re almost never eligible for generalized financial aid,” he said. “When you take away the financial aid aspect, it makes (college) pretty inaccessible.”

For California residents, annual undergraduate tuition is $15,588 at the University of California, $6,838 at the California State University and about $1,380 for 30 units at a community college. Students classified as non-residents — including some asylum seekers before establishing residency — can pay $54,858 at a University of California, about $20,968 at a Cal State before campus-based fees, and roughly $10,140 to $13,560 for 30 units at a community college, depending on the district. These figures do not include campus-based fees, housing or living expenses.

Even when students do manage to establish residency, the cost is still steep. For the many asylum seekers who arrive in the United States as adults, they may not have attended a California school previously, barring them from qualifying for state financial aid.

AB 540, the 2001 law that exempts undocumented students from paying non-resident tuition, only applies if the student attended a California high school or community college for three years.

Those who qualify through AB 540 can fill out the California Dream Act Application for state financial aid, such as Cal Grants, university system-specific grants, state loans, and the state’s middle class scholarship.

The application process can still be confusing for asylum seekers whose status is not fully accounted for in the design of the application. For example, asylum seekers often have Social Security numbers for work authorization, but affirming so while answering the financial aid pre-screening questions leads to undetermined eligibility because the questions don’t take into account the nuances of applying as an asylum seeker.

Stickers and flyers on a table in the Undocumented Community Center at the College of San Mateo in San Mateo, on Nov. 28, 2023. At this center, undocumented students can access financial and legal aid as well as guidance in navigating grant applications.

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Asylum seekers often require extra help from financial aid counselors, but even counselors may not know how to help navigate eligibility rules. Students often wind up seeking help from undocumented student resource centers on public campuses, which are designed to help students who lack legal residency and those from mixed-status families find aid and academic support.

Kaveena Singh, the director of immigration legal services at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, which provides legal services to low-income immigrants, noted that she herself has written letters to financial aid offices to help explain the in-between nature of the few asylum-seeking students she has served.

As an asylum-seeking student in his mid-20s, L. ended up qualifying for state financial aid through AB 540. However, he misunderstood for six years exactly what aid he qualified for. L. wished to withhold his name and the names of the institutions he’s attended for fear of negative impacts on his pending asylum case.

Initially, community college didn’t cost him anything — but when he transferred to a large four-year university, the cost of college soared. He went to his university's financial aid office for help so often that all the staff there knew his name. It was a "big relief” when he was finally able to successfully fill out the California Dream Act Application, and obtain financial aid for his summer and fall quarters.

L.'s asylum case has been pending for nine years. He, his dad, mom and younger brother arrived in the United States in the winter of 2016, claiming asylum under fear of political retribution. His father organized political assemblies in China, and his mother was forced to have an abortion under the one-child policy.

“I just wish I could go home and visit family and friends and catch up for a good few weeks in the summer here and there to reconnect with my past,” L. said. “It's like there's two separate lives, like two entities being artificially cut.”

L. worked throughout high school and college, and worried about affording school.

Most days, the combination of family trauma and the limbo of waiting for his case means L. survives through “constant compartmentalization.”

In the meantime, he tries to carry on — he studies politics, and is interested in international relations and human rights.

"As rough as all that's happened, the silver lining is that one day hopefully I get a passport and a green card," L. said. "To help other people avoid such a hassle will be just as fulfilling for me."

Previous legislative efforts have failed

Legislative bills to extend state financial aid eligibility to asylum-seeking students have been introduced at least twice in recent years but have failed.

One attempt came in 2019, when Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat from El Segundo, introduced SB 296, a bill that would have extended Cal Grant eligibility to students with pending asylum applications. The measure passed the Legislature with some bipartisan support, but was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said that it would "impose costs on the General Fund that must be weighed in the annual budget process."

“That was frustrating, but I understood it,” Allen told CalMatters. “The real issue is that we don’t have good data. Our schools don’t track asylum seekers, so we can’t easily calculate the cost.”

UC data on asylum-seeking students is protected due to privacy policies, according to Stett Holbrook, a UC spokesperson. The Cal State system reports it has less than 500 students with "asylum status," which includes both those who have an asylum granted and asylum seekers, according to Cal State spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith. The numbers are self-reported during the admissions process.

In spring 2025, 13,507 students self-identified as “refugee/asylee” across the California Community Colleges — up from 11,537 the prior semester — per the CCC DataMart. The data does not include a category for just asylum seekers. Students can self-identify their immigration status while applying, but asylum seekers are not specifically tracked, according to the college system’s spokesperson Melissa Villarin.

Four years after SB 296 failed, Democrat Sabrina Cervantes — then representing Riverside in the Assembly and now as a state senator — revived the proposal through AB 888, introduced in 2023. Like Allen’s earlier bill, AB 888 sought to make Cal Grants accessible to students with pending asylum applications by creating a direct eligibility pathway outside the AB 540 residency requirements. The bill passed the Assembly unanimously but was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee last September, effectively ending its chances for the year.

Cervantes declined an interview with CalMatters. “My Assembly Bill 888 would have created a new pathway for pending asylum seekers in California to apply for Cal Grant financial aid in pursuit of their higher education,” Cervantes wrote in a statement.

Newsom’s office declined to say whether he would support a future version of the proposal, pointing instead to his brief 2019 veto message.

“There’s nervousness around anything that involves new expenses," Allen said. “... We’re going to have to spend some time seeing what information we can get with regards to better data to get better estimated costs. I think that will help to better inform the conversation."

Andrea Baltodano and Chrissa Olson are contributors with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.