Quick Take
More than $12 million in free college funds for Santa Cruz County students is sitting unclaimed. Faris Sabbah, Santa Cruz County’s superintendent of schools, wants that to change. He has organized a workshop on Wednesday, Sept. 25, at 5:30 p.m. at Sequoia Schools in Watsonville to help families access college funds for their kids. Here, he explains where the money is and makes a plea to bridge awareness and access gaps.
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Lea esta historia en Español.
Saving for college is about a lot more than dollars and cents.
In fact, research shows that children with college savings accounts of even $1-$500 are three times more likely to enroll in college – and nearly four times as likely to graduate.
These findings are so compelling that, in recent years, we’ve seen major initiatives launch at the local and statewide level to help families start saving.
Santa Cruz County families are especially fortunate to have access to two exceptional programs providing free funds for college and career training. The first is Semillitas, a local program funded by nonprofit Santa Cruz Community Ventures and partners. The second is the state-funded CalKIDS program, administered by the state treasurer’s office.
All children born to Santa Cruz County parents after Dec. 31, 2020, qualify for Semillitas. CalKIDS is available for all California children born after July 1, 2022 – as well as for all students in grades 1-12 who qualify as low-income, are foster youth or are experiencing homelessness.
Both programs are open to youth, regardless of citizenship and documentation status.
Together, these programs can provide up to $2,000 per student — free funds that grow on their own, carry tax advantages and come with no strings attached (beyond the basic requirement they are used for college or career training by the time a young person turns 25).
Sounds pretty great, doesn’t it?
Unfortunately, most of this money hasn’t been claimed because families don’t know about it.
As of June, 25,848 kids in Santa Cruz County were eligible for CalKIDS. But only 1,625 had gone online to claim their accounts. That is slightly more than 6%.
That leaves more than $12 million for local students on the table.
Semillitas faces a similar challenge. Only about 9% of eligible families have engaged with their child’s account or received added milestone deposits.
Here’s the good news: The funds don’t disappear unless they are unused by the child’s 26th birthday.
But if families don’t know about these accounts, the magic and impact of college savings doesn’t work – and they’re missing out on easy-to-claim incentives to add more money into the pot.
Semillitas, for example, has forged amazing local partnerships to add funds to families accounts for completing milestones such as dental visits and wellness checks (partners include Dientes and Salud Para La Gente).
Talk about a win-win.
This has been a topic we’ve been monitoring alongside Semillitas and the state treasurer’s office for years now. We partnered with both organizations to host a town hall in 2022 and have continued to raise awareness through flyers, social media and other outreach methods.
Since then, we continue to hear directly from families about why they have yet to claim their accounts.
Awareness is one factor. Skepticism about whether these accounts are real or a scam is another, especially if notification comes through the mail or social media.
A third factor is more nuts and bolts. Especially for multilingual families and others impacted by a persistent digital divide, the online process to claim these accounts can be confusing and requires access to identifying information that isn’t always on hand.
Together, this creates an unfortunate inequity where the families who would most benefit from these free funds are the least aware of their existence.
One way we’re working to bridge this awareness gap is by hosting a hands-on workshop in partnership with Semillitas and CalKIDS. It’s taking place at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 25, at Sequoia Schools in Watsonville. It will provide the most robust individualized support that’s been provided to date.
We’ll have staff from the county office of education, Semillitas and CalKIDS on hand to walk families through the process of determining eligibility and claiming both accounts – including assistance with creating email addresses and verifying students’ SSID (statewide student identifier) numbers and other required information.
The workshop will be conducted primarily in Spanish, with live interpretation available for English and Mixteco speakers. Chromebooks are available for use to assist with registration, and dinner and onsite child care will be provided at no cost.
If you’re a parent or guardian, I hope you’ll join us at the workshop or extend an invite to a family in your life that could benefit from this kind of hands-on support (pre-register here). Families with young children born in our community, low-income families, English-learner families, and foster youth are among those with the most to gain.
And you’re unable to attend, please check CalKIDS eligibility online or register for a Semillitas parent account.
With your help, it’s our goal to push through these awareness and access barriers so college savings can further fuel a college-going culture across our community.
Our students deserve no less.
Faris Sabbah is the county superintendent of schools.