Two Programs Recognized for Helping Remove Costs as Barrier to College

  • by Julia Ann Easley
News
Two students look at the screen of a laptop in the Coffee House.
Equitable Access provides undergraduates with digital texts for a flat fee of $169 a quarter. (UC Davis)

Two Student Affairs programs — one that provides students with digital texts for a flat rate and another that waives deposits for housing reservations for students with financial need — have been awarded small grants for their innovation in helping remove costs as a barrier to college.

Through its Catalyst Fund awards, the National Association of Higher Education Systems recognized the Equitable Access program for course texts with a $10,000 grant, and the housing reservation fee waiver project with a $5,000 grant.

Equitable Access, which has been saving UC Davis students hundreds of dollars and providing convenient access to course materials since 2020, expanded beyond undergraduates this fall with a pilot program at the Graduate School of Management. Regardless of their major and texts, undergraduates pay $169 a quarter; GSM students pay $199. 

The program makes textbooks affordable broadly and each quarter funds grants to offset the flat rate for about 2,500 students with the greatest need.

Students, parents and volunteers push carts with things they are moving into residence halls.
Family members and volunteers help incoming students load some of the comforts of home into residence halls last month. (Gregory Urquiaga/IUC Davis)

Student Housing and Dining Services, or SHDS, automated how first-year students receive a waiver of the housing deposit after data showed the percentage of eligible students was much higher than the percentage who applied for them.

Students used to have to request the waiver, and housing staff would review financial aid information for each case. With operational changes, housing applicants who receive a waiver for the Statement of Intent to Register fee in the admissions process now automatically receive the waiver for the housing deposit.

The new process not only removes potential bias and stigma, but it also increased usage. Before the changes, about 3% of housing applicants requested a deposit waiver. The new process was rolled out for incoming students for fall 2022, and by fall 2023, 39% of housing applicants, most of them from historically underrepresented groups, received a deposit waiver.

Faye Perata, director of residential operations for SHDS, said the $5,000 grant has been contributed to the UC Davis need based rent subsidy program.

Jason Logan, executive director in Student Affairs whose portfolio includes Equitable Access, said the grant will be used to further assess the program’s impact and to create assets that will help other campuses start a program like Equitable Access.