The Brief

Only one team made it to the final city in this year’s national multi-state high school solar car race.

Palmdale High School students pushed their car onto campus Friday, marking the end of a race cut short. Last-minute technical problems scuttled the team’s plans to drive the car across the unofficial finish line.

“We got first place, right?” one student joked.

It was an unexpected ending to an unusual race. A COVID-19 outbreak among the competition’s coordinators ended the 2023 Solar Car Challenge three days into a weeklong contest from Fort Worth, Texas to Palmdale. It was the first time in three decades the competition had been cut short.

“I was so tired many times,” said senior driver EJ Dela Cruz, recalling the challenges the high school team faced. “But just working on that car, wanting to succeed, just really turned me into something different.”

The Palmdale High School Solar Falcon race team gathers in a circle and cheers after unloading the Helios Falcon solar car on July 21, 2023.

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Since their first race in 2015, the Antelope Valley team has finished the Solar Car Challenge every year except 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic.

It’s no small feat: Over the years, they’ve dealt with faulty wires, blown fuses and even a car catching fire mid-race back in 2018. Plus, persistent funding challenges faced by California public schools.

Assistant Principal Chris Andrews says the challenges have led to valuable lessons for the students.

“Ultimately it's about perseverance,” he said.

Alumni of the program agree. Several Palmdale High School graduates, who are now engineers themselves, can still describe the technical details of building the car as if they happened yesterday rather than nearly a decade ago.

“That was just probably one of the best experiences that I've ever had in my life,” said Oscar Guzman, a 2015 Palmdale grad and former solar car team member. “It really defined what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”

The Solar Falcons origin story

Palmdale’s solar car team is embedded in the school’s Engineering Academy as a class to ensure students receive academic credit and teachers get paid for their work. The school-within-a-school evolved from vocational education classes like automotive mechanics and construction. The program is one of Antelope Valley Union High School District’s 10 academies, which also include concentrations in health care, multimedia, film and video.

“Our jobs as public educators are in order to be able to prepare students for all of those options and choices not within the high school,” said Betsy McKinstry, district director of Career Tech Ed.

Students in the Engineering Academy work in a room that used to be an automotive shop. Sweeping garage doors lead to a classroom where students learn how to use computer-aided design software, laser cutters and 3-D printers.

“In engineering, a lot of it is actually building things that you're going to test,” said Ruben Rodriguez, a founding Engineering Academy teacher. “All that is manual. All that is hands on.”

One of the 3D printers that Palmdale High School engineering students use for their various projects.

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Safety goggles and headphones that the students use in the engineering lab.

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Wyatt Garcia also graduated from Palmdale High School in 2015 and said Rodriguez tailored the classes to teenage interests. For example, the students built skateboards from scratch.

“You weren't going to fail,” Garcia said. “It was all just like little building blocks where you learn how to do this.”

During the 2013-2014 school year, a school field trip to a science symposium where students spotted a “badass” university solar car inspired the students to build a sun-powered vehicle of their own. Garcia wasn’t there, but would hear the story re-counted when he later joined the Solar Falcons, the Palmdale High School team.

The Solar Car Challenge competition, started in 1993, provided a template and a goal — students worked together to build a car, then drive their invention in a race against students from across the country.

Rodriguez served as one of the team’s first advisors back in the summer of 2014.

"If it's good for kids, let's try to figure it out — that's always been my philosophy," said Betsy McKinstry, Antelope Valley Union High School District Director of CTE/College and Career Readiness since 2008.

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Ruben Rodriguez, the founder of the Palmdale High School engineering academy and solar car team said failure is a part of learning. "Engineers don't succeed the first time," Rodriguez said. "You fail, and you fail, and you fail, and you fail — often a lot — so that you will eventually end up with a good product."

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Lockheed Martin initially sponsored the project and engineers from the aerospace company that helped develop military aircraft mentored the team.

Students work in four groups to build all components of the vehicle: electrical, automotive, solar and fabrication. Along the way, students typically solve for dozens of potential disasters. For example, the car’s battery is housed in a metal box that, if not properly ventilated, can overheat and explode.

Guzman, then the team’s vice president, remembers the Lockheed engineers working with students in 2014 and 2015 to ensure the car’s battery could cool off by calculating how much air needed to flow through the battery compartment.

“That light bulb went off and I was like, ’Wow, that's incredible,’” Guzman said.

It was one of the first times Guzman saw engineering in action, but it wouldn’t be the last.

“It opened my eyes,” Guzman said. “It really helped me understand like, ‘Hey, like, this is how math is used in the real world to solve real problems.’”

The team built the first car in less than a year and named it for the Greek sun god. The Helios Falcon traveled 349.5 miles around the Texas Motor Speedway and placed seventh out of 15 teams in 2015.

Wyatt said years later, when he experiences self-doubt, he remembers the solar car team’s debut.

“We fought for it, like, we, we grinded through it,” Garcia said. “People around us supported us through it. And I think that really gave us the motivation, like, to continue on.”

Garcia returned to mentor subsequent solar car teams. It was a way to give back, and also earn supplemental income while he attended community college and cared for his daughter, who was born his junior year in high school.

“It gave me a lot of purpose,” Garcia said.

Joseph Jones, 16, stands near the car's solar panels on July 21, 2023. Jones carried out electrical work on the Helios Falcon.

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Behind the scenes, teachers and district administrators over the years built an infrastructure to financially support the program.

The Antelope Valley Press reported the first car, plus travel to Texas for the competition, cost around $95,000.

The district combines money from state and federal career and technical education funding to maintain class sizes and purchase materials for the Engineering Academy.

“If you can demonstrate that this is good for kids, you can find the funding,” said Andrews, the assistant principal.

The Solar Team also relies on individual donations and corporate sponsorships, including from local science, technology, engineering and mathematics companies.

“To have a homegrown talent pipeline of underrepresented communities that are in our schools, especially in Title One schools, is really important to economic development,” said McKinstry, the district director.

The 2022-2023 school year was teacher Matthew Henzie's first as the Solar Falcon team advisor. He said the students' biggest lessons weren't technical ones. "Some of these kids may never weld again, but they will learn skills that will go through every area of life," Henzie said. "Identifying where the problem is, not only figuring out a solution, but figuring out the best solution and being able to work together as a team."

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The demographics of Palmdale High School’s Engineering Academy largely reflect those of the school overall, with about 85% of the 220 students identifying as Latinx. There are proportionally fewer Black students — they make up 7% of the engineering academy and 14% of the school overall. Over 80% of the engineering academy is male, while the school overall has a roughly 50-50 gender mix.

Nearly 70% of engineering academy students come from low-income families or those in which neither parent has received a high school diploma.

The 2023 race

The Solar Challenge alternates annually between a closed track race and a multi-state sprint where each team has an allotted time each day to travel as many miles as possible. The 2023 route stretched from Fort Worth, Texas to Palmdale.

Once students arrive in Texas, every team has to pass through a rigorous car evaluation dubbed “scrutineering” before they’re cleared to compete.

This year, judges questioned whether the structure of the Palmdale team’s battery box would hold up in a collision.

While the team is used to heat — Palmdale regularly tops 100 degrees in the summer — Texas humidity added challenges.

“You're already stressed and you're hot and you're mad and the car's not working,” recalled team member Hannah Valdez, who serves as the team’s spokesperson. “You're told you have to get this fixed and this and on top of this and that and that It just all really comes into one big issue— that puts a strain on the team.”

The fabrication team rushed to manufacture a solution.

From left, Diego Munoz Diaz, junior; Mathew Adeleke, sophomore; Anthony Sananes, junior; Jennie Perez Armenta, senior; Alejandro Rodriguez, senior; EJ Dela Cruz, senior; Hannah Valdez, junior; Tania Campos, senior; Aleyssa Coleman, senior; Top right: Joseph Jones, sophomore; Cannon Garriga, sophomore, stand next to their solar car, the Helios Falcon, in the parking lot of Palmdale High School on July 21, 2023.

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The last-minute modifications worked and the Helios Falcon passed scrutineering.

On the first day of the race, July 16, the team woke to muggy heat and cloudy skies. Sprinkles soon turned to heavy rain, thunder and lightning. The car was slow to start and only got up to about 20 miles per hour instead of its usual average of 25 to 35 miles per hour.

On day two, the team spent between three and four hours repairing a blown fuse.

A team from Watertown High School in Wisconsin and the Bend School District in Oregon helped with the repairs — a valuable reminder of the race’s purpose.

“It's not about competition between teams, but it's about teamwork,” said Dela Cruz, one of the Palmdale team’s drivers. “And wanting every team to succeed and just finish the race altogether.”

This type of aid is common. Back in 2022, the Palmdale team provided another high school with a spare motor.

“There's always hiccups and I think that's what makes it even more exciting yet challenging and frustrating,” said Kassandra Vazquez Jimenez, a 2019 Palmdale graduate. "You can be there and you'll learn the inside and the outside of the car.”

Diego Munoz Diaz, a junior student, and solar car fabrication engineer, unloads equipment from the school van on July 21, 2023.

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By 10 a.m. on day three, the team found their groove, Valdez said at the time. The Helios Falcon had its best day yet, and traveled 40 miles on the stretch of race between Carlsbad, New Mexico and El Paso, Texas.

But that night, the advisors called the team to the hotel lobby and announced the 2023 challenge was over. More than a dozen staff members of the Solar Car Challenge had COVID-19 and the remainder of the race was canceled to avoid spreading the disease among students.

Team Captain Anthony Sonanes Cruz gave the team space to process.

“I know they needed to let things out and they were just upset,” Sonanes Cruz said. “I wasn't going to say anything to them.”

The Palmdale team returned to their rooms to test. No one from the high school team had COVID then or has tested positive since.

Soon, the team caravan, which included a pickup truck, trailer, and van began the drive back to Palmdale.

“My best memory was spending the nights with the teammates,” driver Dela Cruz said.

The students played Cards Against Humanity in the evenings and were gifted free breakfast from an Arizona café that saw a video of the team on social media.

The Solar Falcons seniors got one last chance to drive the car on an empty stretch of desert road Friday afternoon.

Where are they now?

The Palmdale solar car team has yet to win first place, but alumni describe the experience leading up to the competition as nothing short of life-altering.

Rodriguez, who retired in 2022, said the goal was never for every student to become an engineer.

“What I want is for them to be able to apply whatever it is that they have learned,” Rodriguez said.

Vazquez remembered being one of few women in the engineering academy when she joined as freshman in 2015 and said it was teachers like Rodriguez that encouraged her to continue.

“They would just take me under their wing and help me navigate it,” Vazquez said. Her senior year, Rodriguez introduced her to a team alum that helped inform her decision to study engineering at UC Irvine.

Vazquez now works as a mechanical engineer at Southern California Edison in Palmdale.

Kimberly Amador graduated in 2019 and now studies computer science at University of the Pacific. She says the teamwork is what she remembers most about her time as a Solar Falcon. "Everyone puts in a piece," Amador said. "We're all working together to keep going and keep adding on to that piece."

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Wyatt Garcia planned to join the military or become a firefighter after graduating. After joining the solar car team, he switched to studying engineering at Antelope Valley College. Garcia went on to graduate from Cal State Long Beach with a degree in electrical engineering.

“This whole trajectory, where I'm at right now, is all because of solar car,” Garcia said.

Garcia now works at Honeybee Robotics in Pasadena.

“My stuff I’m working on [that] I physically touched … it’s going to space,” Garcia said with a little bit of wonder before clarifying that whether the craft makes it to the moon will depend on several factors outside of his control.

Garcia’s classmate Oscar Guzman went on to study computer science at Cal State Northridge and is on track to complete a master’s degree in 2024.

Last year he accepted a job at Lockheed Martin — the completion of a dream initiated when he first met engineers from the company while working on the solar car. Guzman doesn’t plan to leave the Antelope Valley any time soon.

“There's plenty of opportunity,” Guzman said. “As long as there's people here who, you know, can lead the way.”

A crowd of parents, school administrators and students gather for the arrival of the Palmdale High School solar race team on July 21, 2023.

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Tania Campos, a Palmdale High School senior and fabrication engineer, embraces her family as she arrives from Texas on July 21, 2023.

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A warm homecoming

Honks from an ambulance, the school’s cheerleaders, revving engines from a local motorcycle club and dozens of friends, family and educators greeted the students at the school just after 6 p.m. Friday.

The team unloaded the Helios Falcon in less than 2 minutes, a routine they perfected while in Texas.

The eleven students huddled in front of the car and at the count of three shouted “Falcons!” in unison.

The team held back tears and laughter while the school’s principal, a board member and the adult support crew commended their work.

“This year I saw 10 misfits become one cohesive team,” said Pedro del Valle, a staff member at the high school and a longtime solar car supporter. “I saw them come out of their shells. I saw their confidence build. And all I can say is, as parents, you should be very proud of every single one of them.”

Sonanes Cruz, the team captain, said he was overwhelmed.

“I thank everyone for the support,” he said. “What else can I say? Thank you.”

Anthony Sonanes Cruz, 17, tearfully embraces his father after a day of unloading and travel from Texas on July 21, 2023.

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The team has a few weeks to rest before preparations for next year’s solar car race and school start in August. Sonanes Cruz will return as the team's captain and CEO.

One team dream is to race in the advanced division of the competition where cars are capable of reaching up to 70 miles per hour. The team also has an electric vehicle that sat out this year’s race that they hope to use in competition again one day.

One of the first things to address is the mechanical issue that hampered the Helios Falcon’s homecoming. Sonanes Cruz guesses it’s a loose wire that should be easy enough to fix.

“I haven't seen one challenge that we have not found a solution for yet,” Sonanes Cruz 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.