La Opinión & Cal Grants: Educating Parents & Students About Money For Higher Education.

La Opinión has partnered with the California Student Aid Commission to create two custom supplements designed to communicate to students and parents the financial benefits available to all qualifying individuals through the Cal Grants program.

The publications aim to reach parents of high school students who are interested in attending college but may not be aware of the financial assistance opportunities at their disposal. The first supplemental guide was a bilingual English/Spanish edition targeted to provide students with relevant information about the programs and answer any questions that they may have about eligibility and applications. The second guide is directed at Hispanic parents and will be published in Spanish; it urges them to seize the opportunity to receive free money for their kids to attend college.

Besides the overview of the Cal Grant program, descriptions of available grants and eligibility requirements, both publications highlight past award recipients and the positive impact that the awards have had on their lives. La Opinión published 881,000 of the Cal Grants supplements. Over 781,000 of the Spanish-language guides will be distributed statewide to parents through La Opinión and its network of 11 partner newspapers. A total of 100,000 of the bilingual publications were distributed to 224 high schools throughout California. Supplements were also delivered to 70 high schools in the Los Angeles area for availability through the school’s Guidance Counselor office.

“We understand that any education beyond secondary school can be very expensive, especially with proposed tuition increases, yet each year more college bound students are eligible to qualify for the grants” states Monica Lozano, President of La Opinión. “Many Hispanics dream of sending their kids to school past the high school level. This is our way of making some of their dreams come true and it’s also part of our ongoing commitment to improve the higher education among Latinos.”