Summary
- Goal: Help C2C data providers identify students with unclaimed scholarship accounts so more students can claim their money to pay for college expenses.
- Outcome: C2C leveraged K-12 and postsecondary education data along with scholarship account data to prepare a report for the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office identifying students who may have unused scholarship funds.
Year
2025 – Present
Status
Active
Agency
ScholarShare Investment Board, California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, California Department of Education
Project Scope
The California Kids Investment and Development Savings (CalKIDS) Program is a universal scholarship program that launched in 2022. The CalKIDS program provides college savings accounts to eligible children, including those born in the state and low-income public school students. The program provides students with scholarships for higher education and career training, and the funds can be used for qualified expenses like tuition, books, and computer equipment at eligible institutions. It is administered by the ScholarShare Investment Board (SIB) as part of the ScholarShare 529 program.
Problem Statement
While the CalKIDS scholarship program provides a key jumpstart for higher education access, many eligible students are not aware of their existing account. SIB knows which students have unclaimed CalKIDS accounts, but they do not know where students enroll in college or how to reach out to these students to encourage them to claim their account. Individual colleges that are part of the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office know which students are enrolled but not which students have unclaimed CalKIDS accounts. These entities can only see a piece of the puzzle because their data was siloed and disconnected.
C2C’s Role
C2C partnered with data providers to understand how the data could be linked and shared across organizations to discover students with unclaimed CalKIDs accounts. C2C received CalKIDS account and disbursement data from Scholarship Investment Board. Once submitted, C2C joined the CalKIDS data with K-12 education data from the California Department of Education (CDE) and community college enrollment information data. C2C prepared a report for the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office that helps determine which community college students may have unclaimed CalKids accounts or unused CalKIDS funds.
Project Impact
This project identified over 40,000 community college students with $20 million in unclaimed scholarships. With this data, the Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office can partner with individual community college districts to reach out to current and prospective students at CCC so they can claim their scholarship funds. The goal is to increase the number of students who claim and use their CalKIDS scholarship money to help them pay for college expenses and make it easier to reach their educational goals.