Capitol Spotlight: Daisy Gonzales, California Student Aid Commission

Daisy Gonzales, the new Executive Director of the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC), is no stranger to navigating crises. From her upbringing as a foster youth, juggling school while moving homes, to managing the Assembly Budget Committee during the recession, Dr. Gonzales knows how to find innovative solutions to challenging situations.

Gonzales assumed her role as Executive Director on July 15th of this year. In her interview for the position, she identified four key crises facing CSAC and explained why she is the right leader to solve them.

“If you want transformational change, I am the person for you,” says Gonzales. “You are facing declining applications. You are facing an economic outlook that is not good. College affordability is not accessible, even when we think about loans. For most students, basic needs are the number one problem, which means they never even make it to us. They never even know we exist.”

To know why Gonzales is a fitting leader for the nation’s largest state-run financial aid agency, we must look back to her childhood. Having been in the foster care system since the age of two, Gonzales moved frequently across Southern California, identifying as a daughter of California.

When she moved, Gonzales carried all of her belongings in a trash bag. She attended two high schools and numerous elementary schools, and her most treasured possessions were her books and two childhood photographs. The most influential figures in her life were her social worker, who gave her extra time to say goodbye before each move, and her bus driver, who always waited to make sure that she got to school on time.

At 14, Gonzales’ social worker told her that she did not have enough credits to graduate high school, so she needed to enroll in community college courses. Nervous and unsure about the enrollment process, she showed up to Los Angeles Valley College. A landscaper noticed her confusion and guided her to the financial aid office, teaching her how to enroll along the way.

By 17, Gonzales emancipated from the foster system under the impression that it would increase her access to financial aid. This turned out to be false, leaving her homeless. She spent the last six months of high school living with her chemistry teacher, Ms. Barker, who helped her apply for college. Gonzales says that she became a California Chafee Grant recipient because of Barker’s guidance.

“All those people influenced my belief of family,” says Gonzales. “Family are a group of people who support each other. Sometimes you’re related to them. Sometimes they are those public servants that help you get through it.”

Gonzales arrived at Mills College in Oakland with her only suitcase, ready to pursue her calling to public service. There, she started a program called “Books not Bars,” collecting books and donating them to prisons. She was one of 13 women-of-color on campus and an active member of the group Mujeres Unidas y Activas, “an organization of Latina and Indigenous immigrant women with the mission of growing our personal and community power to achieve social and economic justice.” Seeking to build bridges with other identity-based groups, Gonzales created the Solidarity Lounge, a safe space for all women of color to convene.

“Family are a group of people who support each other. Sometimes you’re related to them. Sometimes they are those public servants that help you get through it.”

After earning her degree in public policy, Gonzales became a teacher, first in Oakland and then in Fairfield, leading her to Sacramento. She taught third grade dual immersion, and she quickly grew frustrated with what she saw as the systemic flaws in public education. On a whim, she googled “public policy in California,” which is how she came across the Assembly Fellowship Program.

Gonzales worked for the Assembly Budget Committee as a fellow during the 2009-2011 fiscal crisis, managing $11.2 billion at the age of 24. Her first task involved funding cuts in foster care, and she quickly learned the value of managing difficult responsibilities with dignity and compassion.

“Even as an Assembly fellow and young legislative staffer for the Assembly Budget Committee, it was evident that Daisy was a leader,” says Joe Stephenshaw, Director of the Department of Finance and a mentor to Gonzales. “She always took the initiative to organize exercises and events to support team bonding and employee morale during what were very tough budget times.”

Eager to learn more, Gonzales pursued her master’s and doctoral degrees at UC Santa Barbara. Her thesis, titled “Budgeting Under Crisis,” analyzed how the state of California can empower stakeholders to solve their own problems by fostering collaboration and education.

After completing her PhD, Gonzales faced a handful of employment rejections before Stanford reached out to her with an offer. As the Associate Director of PACE (Policy Analysis for California Education), an independent research center led by universities like Stanford, she led the research behind the Local Control Funding Formula, K-12’s new funding formula.

Gonzales moved on to work for the Assembly Appropriations Committee, leading her to the path of higher education policy. She met Eloy Oakley, former Chancellor of Community Colleges when she was working on AB 705, a bill aimed to restrict remedial education, and he offered her a job. Gonzales became the youngest and the first woman of color as Deputy Chancellor of California Community Colleges.

“Dr. Daisy Gonzales is a committed advocate for California’s most underserved learners and has established herself as a successful policy reformer,” says Oakley. “As the Deputy Chancellor of the California Community Colleges, she led numerous efforts to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for community college students.”

Her dream was to design a system where everyone, regardless of their background or income, could access the highest level of education. As Deputy Chancellor of California Community Colleges, she focused on increasing access for adult learners and remedial education reform.

Gonzales’ top priority was introducing and implementing the Student Centered Funding Formula, reimagining funding of community colleges in California. Gonzales’ work revealed basic needs to be a critical problem, particularly for adult learners who don’t see the return on investment from higher education.

Her second year at Community Colleges, Gonzales contributed to 2019’s SB 291, an ultimately unsuccessful effort to revamp the Cal Grant system, bringing her to the California Student Aid Commission and its Equity Framework. CSAC is still focused on the Cal Grant Equity Framework, thinking about how they can implement auto-renewals of financial aid and how they can package their dollars so that students can clearly understand their options.

When she began her new role as Executive Director of CSAC, Gonzales faced an impending September 3rd deadline for community college students to submit their financial aid applications, amidst a concerning rate of decline in applications from recent high school graduates.

CSAC pivoted its outreach strategy, emphasizing student stories and collaborating with California Community Colleges to move outreach to the 15 districts where applications were the lowest. By the deadline, the team managed to reduce the application decline by 9% compared to the previous year.

“When you’re trying to reach underserved Californians, they need to trust you first,” she says. “What I’ve learned is that when you are vulnerable, when you walk them through the process, that’s one thing. But when you can tell them I’ve made it through as well, it’s very different.”

Before stepping into her role, Gonzales took a journey interviewing campus presidents, student mentees, philanthropic leaders, and former Executive Directors of CSAC about how they would transform financial aid and what role CSAC should play. When she met the team, she shared her belief that CSAC had been reactive for too long. Her vision was to create a multi-year strategic plan with equity at the core.

“What I’ve learned is that when you are vulnerable, when you walk them through the process, that’s one thing. But when you can tell them I’ve made it through as well, it’s very different.”

The plan is built on five key commitments which prioritize dignity and compassion for students and data-driven problem solving. They presented their plan in September, and they will take action to adopt it in December, with a long-term goal for 100% FAFSA completion by 2030.

CSAC is currently working to find financial aid solutions for aspiring teachers, as state funding for the Golden State Teacher Grant Program is expected to end soon. Expanding the Cal-HBCU Transfer Grant Program, which awards up to $5,000 to students who transfer from a California Community College to an HBCU, is another priority. CSAC is working with the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office to facilitate agreements with HBCUs.

They are also looking to the next financial aid cycle, as the federal government announced that the CADAA and FAFSA application release date will be delayed until December 1st. In October and November, CSAC is launching their campaign and communicating challenges ahead, such as application access for mixed status families.

Gonzales acknowledges the challenges she has inherited: a massive state deficit, a 7.95% budget cut at CSAC, an agency with fewer than 141 employees, and rising college costs that are increasingly out of reach for many students.

For Gonzales, the path forward lies in partnership – with other agencies and with students. Her immediate focus is documenting available resources and CSAC’s current impact. Gonzales says she is committed to CSAC until she finds a stable solution for California’s financial aid system. She dreams about a future with a universal aid application, auto-renewals, and college affordability included in the formula.

“How do I then bridge the gap to other social services, other agencies, to learn from us and to know that the work is possible? The long term plan is just to continue to serve as a public servant, to connect the dots for people, and to be of service in my lifetime. I think we’re all meant to be here on this earth for a reason. I can tell you that in the time that I have, it’s just fixing one state agency at a time.”