Affordable Learning & Financial Support

Affordable Learning & Financial Support

Affordable learning makes full university engagement accessible to students from all backgrounds and promotes social mobility. Dependable financial support includes programs, initiatives, and activities that provide monetary resources to students to support their educational goals. Financial insecurity and anxiety have been linked to decreased academic success and mental health and wellbeing, particularly among low-income, historically underrepresented, and/or first-generation college students.

The Affordable Learning & Financial Support Working Group was formed in summer 2022.

Working Group Mission Statement

All students have the resources they need to fully engage in learning and community at UC San Diego and graduate into their next steps with no or limited debt.

3 Sub Goal Areas

Day one access to materials
- Goal #1 will prioritize investments that work at the campus wide level (e.g. changes to how course materials are licensed/distributed, providing campus-wide technology requirements and purchasing/support options) while also targeting efforts toward courses that fit within the following framework: early career/high enrollment/high DFW/high course material cost.
Holistic and proactive support
- Goal #2 will create a proactive and holistic approach to engaging prospective, admitted and enrolled students to ensure they are connected to the support services the university can provide to address financial stress.
Debt free UC/Return of Investment
- Goal #3 focuses on strategies that further reduce degree cost and time to degree by developing high-impact, locally relevant course materials to support key courses in highly subscribed undergraduate degree pathways.