BUSSW Alum Mia Ocean (PhD’15) Influences California Financial Aid Policy that Promotes More Equitable Access to Education
Education opens doors to better career prospects, higher income, and personal development, allowing people to break cycles of poverty and inequality. However, many students from low-income backgrounds rely on financial aid to achieve their education goals and they are more vulnerable to losing that aid for a wider variety of reasons than students from different socio-economic backgrounds. A new California law allows students the right to appeal if they lose their financial aid, potentially transforming their academic paths. The law cites research by Mia Ocean (PhD’15), an alum from BU School of Social Work, from her dissertation, “Academically Eligible and Ineligible Pell Grant Community College Students: A Qualitative Investigation.”
“Serving as a conduit between financial aid recipients and policy makers is one of the greatest honors of my life,” says Ocean.
The law, now in effect for the 2023–24 academic year, impacts 362 postsecondary institutions, including the University of California, California State University, and the nation’s largest community college system, reaching over 2.5 million students. The cited research from Ocean critiqued financial aid that is dependent on a set of criteria called “satisfactory academic progress,” finding that these regulations were arbitrary and didn’t consider each student’s individual responsibilities and needs. Therefore, the new right to appeal allows students to advocate for their specific situations and have more control over their education and future.