Every Baby Born in California Gets Free Money for College — Here’s How

Reasons to move to California are infinite: the weather, the scenery, the things to do, and the mix of cultures to experience. But there’s another compelling reason to live in the Golden State — especially if you have or plan to have children: college.

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If you didn’t know, every baby born in California gets free money for college. Interested in how that works?

Read on to find out more details on how every baby born in California gets free money for college.

CalKIDS Program

There is a state-wide program known as CalKIDS, which, according to the website, is a “free savings program that provides California kids with up to $1,500 for college education and career training.”

Through CalKIDS, every baby born in California automatically receives a college savings account with a scholarship of up to $175. That includes more than $21 million set aside for children born in Los Angeles County alone.

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Eligibility Qualifications

CalKIDs provides funding to children in-state who fall into one of the two categories. The first group are children born on or after July 1, 2022, in the state of California. The other group are students who are enrolled in California public schools from first grade to 12th grade and are considered low-income.

Residents of California can confirm their child’s eligibility using the CalKIDS Eligibility Tool, as well as review the rules for income eligibility that are set by California’s Local Control Funding Formula. Some additional funding is available to money is available to California youth who belong to low-income families, are part of foster care, or are unhoused.

Using Funds For College

For eligible children, CalKIDS sets up a savings account in their name, which parents, family members and students can contribute to at any time before the child’s 17th birthday.

At that point, the student can use the funds to cover qualified education expenses such as tuition, books, housing and other college-related costs.

Disbursement Of Funds

California’s network of in-state colleges — including the University of California (UC) system — works with students to apply CalKIDS funds directly toward education expenses.

For example, UCLA automatically disburses funds to students’ BruinBill accounts. According to the UCLA CalKIDS webpage, if a student has an outstanding balance when funds are disbursed, the money will be applied toward that balance.

The informational section goes on to describe that should there be an “…excess funds after the balance was paid or if there is no balance at the time of the funds disbursing, a refund will be generated directly to the student based on the method of refund they are signed up for.”

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